Book series are all very good but sometimes all you want to
read is a stand alone book: one that is a complete story in itself. These are
my top picks from the summer!
Folk by Zoe Gilbert
is a lovely collection of short folklore stories that are all set on the same island and have interweaving characters. A mix of fantasy and old fairy
tales, the novel becomes much more interesting as you begin to know the
different characters. Very clever and readable.
The Pearl Thief by
Elizabeth Wein is set in Scotland in 1938 involving the aristocracy and Scottish
Travellers. Both can follow their lineage back centuries. Lady Julie is 16 and
has her last summer in Strathfearn sorting the estate out as it is being sold
to cover debts. A man is missing, presumed dead, and many are blaming the Travellers but, to Julie, they are friends. A summer of growing up, solving
mysteries and working out who she actually is in a fast changing decade. Prejudice: certainly. Romance: but in a sweet way. This book would be good for Wong mystery
lovers and is a prequel to Code Name Verity which I now want to read.
Hope is Our Only Wing
by Rutendo Tavengerwei. What is hope? A leap into endless darkness or the only
reason to keep fighting? This is written by a Young Adult debut author and is set
in newly independent Zimbabwe. 15 year old Shamiso, struggling to come to terms
with the death of her journalist father and uprooted from Slough and is taken to her family's country of origin, Zimbabwe. There she meets Tanyaradzwa who is battling an illness. Both have different ideas
of whether ‘hope’ is worth it. It paints a picture of a struggling new country
and the mess it was getting into and yet also points out the mess the colonists
had left it in as well. It made me wonder whether the bread basket of Africa
could have been saved and whose fault was it that it wasn’t. A really
interesting read and I definitely want to read more books by this author.
Hour of The Bees by
Lindsay Eagar is about how things are only impossible if you stop to think
about them. Carol has to spend the summer with her grandpa whom she has never
met who has dementia. The family are clearing out his ranch to put him in a
home but Caroleena, as her grandpa calls her, is drawn to the old man and his
stories of the magical tree and the bees. Truth or fiction? You decide, but within that summer this 12 year old Mexican American protagonist grows up a little, discovers
family and finds her roots. It is a mix of magic and reality, family and
folklore and what is important in life. Another debut author that I will
definitely keep an eye out for.
Whistle in the Dark by
Emma Healey. This is not a psychological thriller as some have marketed it. It is the story of a mother, Jen, who is struggling to cope with her
depressed, self-harming, suicidal teenager who went missing for 4 days and won’t
say where she has been, other than that she got lost. The author has got the voice of
a mother in this situation spot on. She is so worried about Lana that she ends
up herself losing all perspective in life and, in my opinion, actually in need of
some counselling herself! I would have liked to have known more about her husband, Hugh, and her other daughter, Meg, who it seems are the only reasonable voices in the book.