Anticipated Reads- January- March 2020
- theshelfldn
- Jan 2, 2020
- 5 min read
The first few months of 2020 promise some absolutely wonderful books. Some of my favourite authors will be releasing their latest books, including Evie Wyld and Eimer McBride, whose third novel Strange Hotel will be out in February. Meanwhile the big debuts of the year are already hitting the shelves, with Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age kicking off the fun! After an evening scouring publisher's catalogues, these are the books I'm most excited by for 2020!
January
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid Bloomsbury
When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for 'kidnapping' the white child she's babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix, a feminist blogger with the best of intentions, resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix's desire to help.
Things in Jars, Jess Kidd, Canongate
London, 1863. A strange puzzle has reached Bridie Devine, the finest female detective of her age. To recover a stolen child, Bridie must enter the dark world of medical curiosities. The public love a spectacle and this child may well prove the most remarkable spectacle London has ever seen.
Braised Pork, An Yu Harvill Secker
One morning in autumn, Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub. Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia sets out to discover what this mysterious clue might mean.
February
Topics of Conversation, Miranda Popkey Profile Books
Miranda Popkey's debut novel follows one woman as she makes her way through two decades of bad relationships, motherhood, crisis and consolation, each new episode narrated through the conversations she has with other women: in private with friends, at late-night parties with acquaintances, with strangers in hotel rooms, in moments of revelation, shame, intimacy, cynicism and desire.
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates Hamish Hamilton
Hiram Walker is born into bondage on a Virginia plantation. But he is also born gifted with a mysterious power that he won't discover until he is almost a man, when he risks everything for a chance to escape. One fateful decision will carry him away from his makeshift plantation family - his adoptive mother, Thena, a woman of few words and many secrets, and his beloved, angry Sophia - and into the covert heart of the underground war on slavery.
The Book Of Echoes, Rosanna Amaka Doubleday
Over two hundred years ago in Africa, a woman tosses her young son to safety as she is
hauled away by slavers. After a brutal sea passage, her second child, a baby girl, is snatched away. Although the woman doesn’t know it yet, her spirit is destined to roam the earth in search of her lost children. Her spirit will make its way to modern-day England, where she watches teenage Michael trying to stay out of trouble, and to a sun-baked village in Nigeria, where Ngozi struggles to escape her low- caste status.
Strange Hotel, Eimer McBride Faber
At the mid-point of her life a woman enters an Avignon hotel room. She's been here once before - but while the room hasn't changed, she is a different person now. Forever caught between check-in and check-out, she will go on to occupy other hotel rooms, from Prague to Oslo, Auckland to Austin, each as anonymous as the last, but bound by rules of her choosing.
Nightingale, Marina Kemp
4th Estate
Marguerite Demers is twenty-four when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint-Sulpice, to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier, once one of the most powerful men in the village, and now dying alone in his large and secluded house, surrounded by rambling gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all his previous nurses
March
The Weight of Love, Hilary Fannin Doubleday
Two young Irish emigres meet in a city energised by a mood of cultural optimism and a sense of tentative political revival. Robin, already in love with Ruth, introduces her to his childhood friend, artist Joseph, a fragile, beautiful young Londoner unable to cope with the sudden attention his work is receiving. Ruth and Joseph begin a passionate affair, one ultimately destined for tragedy. Years later, Ruth and Robin are married and living in Dublin with their son, Sid, who is about to emigrate to Berlin. After eighteen years of marriage, Robin has long since understood that Ruth believes it was Joseph, not Robin, who was the great love of her life.
You Let Me In, Camilla Bruce Bantam Press
Everyone knows bestselling novelist Cassandra Tipp twice got away with murder. Even her family are convinced of her guilt. So when she disappears, leaving only a long letter behind, they suspect her conscience finally got the better of her. But the letter is not what anyone expected. Instead of a confession, it tells two chilling stories. One is a story of bloody nights and magical gifts. The other is the story of a little girl who was cruelly treated and grew up in the shadows. Both stories might be true. Both stories end in murder. But is this a tale of supernatural seduction? Or the story of a broken child?
The Voice in My Ear, Frances Leviston Jonathan Cape
Ten women, all called Claire, are tangled up in power dynamics with their families, friends, and lovers. Though all are different ages, and leading different lives, each is haunted by the difficulty of living on her own terms, and by her capacity to harm and be harmed. Claire is a teenaged babysitter left alone with a strange little girl and her imaginary friend. She is a woman trying to escape her elderly mother by employing an android carer. Claire is a young TV journalist wrecking her first big interview. Claire’s boyfriend discovers more than he bargains for when he begins to read her diary.
The Bass Rock, Evie Wyld Jonathan Cape
Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. Across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other. In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community. Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth’s belongings and discovers her place in the past – and perhaps a way forward.
Nightshade, Annalena McAfee Harvill Secker
Eve Laing, once the muse of an infamous painter, is now an artist herself. But she feels she has sacrificed her career for her family and she resents the global success of her old college roommate, now a celebrity of the international conceptual art scene. When Eve embarks on her most ambitious work yet, she takes a wrecking ball to her comfortable life, jettisoning her marriage for a beautiful young lover, a drifter half her age, who seems to share her single-minded creative vision. Nightshade charts Eve’s nocturnal walk through London, from her former family home in the west of the city back to her studio, a converted factory in the east, where her recently completed masterpiece hangs and a fatal reckoning awaits.
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