JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Husbands by Chandler Baker

Welcome to the neighbourhood. We do things differently here.

Recently, Nora has started to feel that ‘having it all’ – a family, a soon-to-be new house, a successful career in law – comes with a price, one her husband doesn’t seem to be paying quite so heavily. She loves Hayden, but why is it that, however hard men work, their wives always seem to work that much harder?

Then her house-hunting takes them to an affluent suburban neighbourhood and Nora’s eyes are opened to a new world. One where women can have it all. One where the men actually pull their weight.

But a wrongful death case involving one of the local residents draws Nora further into this perfect world and she begins to realise that the secret of ‘having it all’ is far more complicated than she could ever have imagined. In fact, it may be worth killing for…

Feminist thriller The Husbands is Chandler Baker’s second novel, this time set in an affluent suburban community in Austin Texas, where the residents aren’t as they seem and protagonist Nora gets sucked into solving a strange house fire.

The Husbands is very reminiscent of Stepford Wives, where behaviour doesn’t quite have an explanation and each domestic relationship holds countless secrets. The Husbands imagines an environment where husbands pull their weight and responsibility is shared equally — an environment I’m sure many female readers wish existed.

“But he looked so sad. It was her fault — she’d been the one to go and marry an extrovert. And he’d really wanted to have one with Liv, only Nora had never gotten around to planning it. And anyway, he promised, promised, that they weren’t those kinds of parents.”

Strengths lie in the pacing and build-up of tension, drip-feeding clues to the reader and enticing us to keep flicking to the next chapter. The Husbands will please fans of thrillers and mysteries.

The characterisation of Nora will resonate with the reader, as Chandler does well to capture her frazzled, frustrated state of mind. She’s fed up and at the end of her tether, and Chandler captures moments of tension between Nora and her husband with relatable dialogue and scenes.

“Nora finds much of the explanation has flown over her head: Maybe she has one of those interrupted neural pathways. Science always makes her feel like a dimwit. But she makes an encouraging noise as they continue to walk and talk through the next corridor, where closed doors line either side.”

The premise of the novel isn’t anything new, nor is Nora’s character arc. A determined career woman trying to juggle a career and a family, with very little help from her dopey husband, feels like quite a common plot. But the mystery surrounding the Dynasty Ranch neighbourhood and the strange house fire that killed a man does add another layer to it that separates it from the rest of the genre.

I do wish the revelations at the end — in particular, the backstory provided by Cornelia — was less of an info dump. Cornelia’s truth would’ve been more interesting to discover had Nora stumbled upon some of it herself, instead of Cornelia just blurting it all out at the end of the book like a horror movie.

“Nora and Francine linger a moment longer, sizing one another up. Nora tries to sort through what her role here is, attempts to calculate which would be worse, to tell Cornelia and Asher or not to.”

Clever and twisty, The Husbands is recommended for readers of contemporary fiction and thriller — part murder mystery part domestic psychological thriller. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Husbands
Chandler Baker
July 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

The Eighth Wonder by Tania Farrelly

New York, 1897. The richest city in the world.

Beautiful, young and privileged, Rose Kingsbury Smith is expected to play by the strict rules of social etiquette, to forfeit all career aspirations and to marry a man of good means. But she has a quietly rebellious streak and is determined to make her own mark on Manhattan’s growing skyline. When the theft of a precious heirloom plunges the Kingsbury Smiths into financial ruin, Rose becomes her family’s most tradeable asset. She finds herself fighting for her independence and championing the ideal of equality for women everywhere.

Enigmatic Ethan Salt’s inglorious circus days are behind him. He lives a quiet life on Coney Island with his beloved elephant Daisy and is devoted to saving animals who’ve been brutalised by show business. As he struggles to raise funds for his menagerie, he fears he will never build the sanctuary of his dreams … until a chance encounter with a promising young architect changes his life forever.

Just when Rose is on the verge of seeing her persistence pay off, the ghosts of her past threaten to destroy everything she holds dear. In the face of heartbreaking prejudice and betrayal, she must learn to harness her greatest wonder within.

Historical fiction at its finest, Tania Farrelly’s debut novel The Eighth Wonder is a sweeping saga that will take readers all over New York and Coney Island in 1897, an incredibly progressive era for visionaries and creative individuals who dared to dream.

Written in third person, we meet the beautiful and wealthy Rose just as her family loses an expensive heirloom to a thief. Soon, they’re struggling to pay the bills and the stress placed on her family forces Rose’s mother to encourage a marriage – something Rose never wanted. It forces Rose to be look for success elsewhere, in an effort to save her family from destitution.

“Rose hovered for a moment, her mind reeling with the truth about Jack. For a moment she just stood there, rooted to the spot, feeling a strange mix of betrayal and hurt. She pressed her hand to her throat, as if it might smooth her breathing.”

The Eighth Wonder shines a light on women who exceeded expectations and followed their instincts. Rose is an intelligent visionary, desperate for more than a future as a wife and mother. She has to fight society’s expectations of her, as well as her own mother. Her father too sometimes doubts her, although there’s clearly a very strong relationship between the two that gives Rose strength and drive to pursue her passion for architecture.

Rose’s character development comes with acknowledging her elitism and privilege, and there’s a pretty striking scene where she ventures into another area of New York and is confronted with the harsh realities of how the other half live. Over time, she comes to realise there’s more to life than riches. It’s about staying true to yourself, and those you love.

“Once, he would have made a run for it. But now that he stood a full six foot four and a half inches in bare feet and had a face that invited second glances, he’d discovered the most effective way to escape any threat was to stay cool.”

Rose’s love of architecture was an interesting addition to the plot, and something I loved reading. Architecture would’ve been such a male-dominated industry in the late 1800s New York City, so watching Rose persevere through setbacks, more determined than ever, was heart-warming.

Animal welfare is another theme explored in the book, and as I understand it, inspired by true events. Reading about Jake and Ethan and their determination to limit abuse to animals was a touching element to the story.

Tania’s writing is stripped and sleek, it’s hard to accept this is a debut. This slots into the historical fiction genre effortlessly.

“For the first time ever, Rose doubted whether he would defend her. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole, especially on seeing Edith take her place by the mantel and swirl the brandy Rose had wrongly assumed was for her father.”

The Eighth Wonder is recommended for fans of historical fiction. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This review is featured by Twinkl in their blog about the latest must-read books. See more recommendations and get involved at Book Lovers’ Top Picks For Your 2021 TBR List.

The Eighth Wonder
Tania Farrelly
July 2021
Penguin Random House Publishers

The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry

‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’

In Queens, New York, 22-year-old real estate agent Madison May is showing a house. The buyer, a man she’s never met, is friendly, engaging . . . and claims to be her soulmate from a parallel life. She’s in danger, he tells her. He’s come to save her.

Later that day, newspaper journalist Felicity Staples is assigned to report on Madison May’s murder. Discontent with her own life, Felicity finds herself drawn into a shocking conspiracy involving a powerful group who have harnessed the ability to slip between lives – to move between one version of reality to another.

On the run, turned into an imposter in her own life, Felicity is forced to seek the truth behind Madison May, the woman who is murdered over and over, in different ways, wherever she goes. For only by saving Madison May can Felicity reassemble the broken pieces of herself.

Max Barry’s The 22 Murders of Madison May is a parallel-universe thriller about a crazed psychopath and his incessant, unexplained need to travel between different worlds to kill the same girl, over and over — Madison May.

We meet Madison in the opening chapter. She’s a young real estate agent showing a new listing to a potential buyer. Before long, he’s professing his love for her. And then he’s stabbing her to death. When reporter Felicity Staples is assigned the story, she’s suddenly thrust into an inter-dimensional saga that has her leaping through time in an effort to save Madison May.

“She sprawled on the tracks, banging her chin and elbow and knee. Her bag hit the ground and vomited forth her belongings. She raised her head quickly, because there was a train approaching, she recalled, a train, its lights blooming, and as she did, the air split with a bone-rattling blast from its horn.”

Barry’s novel is very good — so good I ripped through the story in one day. This is the very definition of a cat-and-mouse chase.

The world-building is complex enough to be interesting and draw the reader in, but not so complicated that it’s hard for readers to follow. Everything about this novel is comprehensible and easy to follow.

In each new world, Felicity’s life is very similar, with a few exceptions. Perhaps her boyfriend suddenly knows how to cook, or one of her cats doesn’t exist. Her job is the same, and her apartment as well, but her furniture might be different. And in every new world, Madison May has the same aspirations and the same friends, but her life is in a different place. She’s a real estate agent or a waitress, or perhaps she’s trying to make it as an actress.

Once we’ve moved on from one world, we never go back again, so the story is always progressing in a forward motion and there’s always something new to discover when we meet Madison May again and again and again. The poor girl just keeps getting murdered, and yet Felicity is determined to save her, even though she knows that when she moves into another world, she’ll never be able to go back to her old life. She’s moving further and further away from her own reality.

Experimenting with notions of the space-time continuum, The 22 Murders of Madison May is certainly something I could see playing out on the big screen.

“She didn’t want to give up the egg. It was practically the only thing she had: the only thing that had come with her aside from the clothes she’d been wearing. But she couldn’t hide it for much longer. Eventually, they would find it.”

There’s a small cast of characters, which allows Barry to capture each with depth and believability. Each new world is an alternate construction of Madison May, and how she intersects with Felicity, Clay and Hugo. Occasionally, secondary characters make an appearance.

I’ll admit, there didn’t seem to be as much introspection for Felicity as I would’ve expected. She doesn’t seem particularly stricken to discover she can never go back to her old life, and she seems to cast aside her job rather quickly — so quickly I forgot her job existed at all. Her character development is about embracing the life you’re given and not dwelling on what’s lost, but still, I expected a bit more reflection from her character. Psychologically, shouldn’t she be more affected by what she’s facing?

“She didn’t dare turn. But she saw his eyes shift. The hand holding the knife moved lower, hovering between the front seats like the fang of a snake. He would let the car pass, she saw. If she moved, he would stab her, but his plan was to kill her after it had gone.”

Chilling and clever, and progressing at breakneck speed, The 22 Murders of Madison May is a joy to devour. For fans of crime, thriller and mystery novels. Readership skews 20+

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The 22 Murders of Madison May
Max Barry
July 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

Loving Lizzie March by Susannah Hardy

Life is not going to plan for failed fashion designer Lizzie March, and then she finds herself pregnant to super-hot bad boy Jake Wheeler.

Convinced that he’s The One, now all she has to do is make him realise that she is The One for him!

But is it possible she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places? Maybe everything she has ever wanted is right under her very own stilettos.

Susannah Hardy’s debut novel Loving Lizzie March is a romantic comedy about life, love and friendship in your 30s. Lizzie’s relationship history is a bit of a trainwreck and her fashion career is on hold. Actually, it seems like her friendship with best friend Clem is the only stable element of her life, but even that’s starting to blow up. Lizzie’s life isn’t heading where she thought it would, and she needs to learn to take control.

Most of the humour in the novel is situational comedy, rather than humour in dialogue. We meet Lizzie as she’s stalking her colleague and former one-night-stand, climbing on top of his bin trying to find out he’s home or not. That opening alone sets the tone for the rest of the novel, and gives us a clear picture of who Lizzie really is.

I would’ve loved a bit more humour in her workplace, if there was capacity. She sells wine over the phone, which is kind of quirky. Her job at the call centre is used as a setting rather than a plot device, so we don’t really get much of a sense of her actual work at the call centre and that could’ve been an opportunity for even more humour in the novel. But I did like how Susannah set up the tension between Lizzie and Jake at work, as well as the other colleagues who weave in and out of the story.

“Most conversations with my mother centre around the same subject: Mr Right. And how and when I’m going to meet him. As far as she’s concerned, being thirty and single is a tragedy. She simply cannot understand why I haven’t been snapped up.”

Pacing is a strength in this novel, and I think that’s an important factor in women’s fiction — especially romantic comedies. We need to move through the story at heightened speed, and it needs to feel like a lot is happening. The protagonist’s life needs to feel chaotic in order to trigger self-reflection, and eventually, self-improvement. Being written in first person allows Lizzie to reflect on her life choices and acknowledge her mistakes. It also allows for an authentic voice to come through, and it aligns with the genre really well.

The nappy bag idea is cute, and the relationship between Lizzie and Clem is one of the strongest components of the plot. The majority of people who read this novel will be women and they’ll be able to relate to Lizzie and Clem’s friendship. It’s long-lasting and it’s secure, but there are also expectations that need to be met. Lizzie tends to railroad conversations and doesn’t really think about what Clem is going through, and Susannah has set up quite a complex dynamic between the two women that reflects everyday life. Their personalities certainly allow for interesting interactions — Clem is the sensible, emotionally secure, level-headed lawyer and Lizzie is…Lizzie.

“I’m thrilled with my idea. I’ve never had any sort of plan before so I’m already one step ahead. Now, all I have to do is be mysterious and aloof — occasionally resist the advances of a devastatingly handsome man to whom I’m pregnant, as well as incredibly attracted and desperate to marry. Piece of cake.”

There is a level of absurdity to the storyline, and things do feel like they wrap up a little too neatly. Whilst Lizzie does grow on the reader over time, she is quite unlikable in the beginning — and dare I say, certifiably bonkers. The segue into the drugs arrest was a bit bizarre, and shoe-horning the storyline about Cherie into the novel felt a bit unnatural. Sometimes the dialogue felt a bit inauthentic, like I couldn’t see the conversation playing out in real life.

But the intended audience for this kind of book won’t care about any of that. They’ll be glad to delve into an easy, light read. Something you could imagine reading on a plane, if we can ever go anywhere again. On a beach somewhere, far away. Loving Lizzie March will take your mind off all that’s going on in the world right now.

“After inheriting my nana’s sewing machine, I chose textiles as my elective and I loved it. My teacher, Miss Wilton, was fantastic. She was young, hip and inspiring, and encouraged me to really push myself and my creativity in all sorts of wacky directions.”

Heartwarming and heartfelt, Loving Lizzie March is for readers of women’s fiction and chick lit. Readership skews female, 25+

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Loving Lizzie March
Susannah Hardy
July 2021
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Voyeur by Francesca Reece

Leah, a young woman who has found herself ‘ambitioned’ out of London, is now aimlessly adrift in Paris. Tired of odd jobs in cafes and teaching English to unresponsive social media influencers, her heart skips a beat when she spots an advert for a writer seeking an assistant.

Michael was once the bright young star of the London literary scene, now a washed-up author with writer’s block. He doesn’t place much hope in the advert, but after meeting Leah is filled with an inspiration he hasn’t felt in years.

When Michael offers Leah the opportunity to join him and his family in their rambling but glorious property in the south of France for the summer, she finally feels her luck is turning. But as she begins to transcribe the diaries from his debauched life in 1960s Soho, something begins to nag at Leah’s sense of fulfilment; that there might be more to Michael than meets the eye.

Francesca Reece’s debut novel Voyeur is a dual-POV literary novel set between the UK and Europe, and following an aimless young woman’s coming-of-age journey after she is employed as an author’s assistant. When Michael meets Leah through a chance encounter, he’s struck by how familiar she looks – Leah resembles a woman he once loved years earlier, and perhaps still does. But what happened to the young Astrid? And what was Michael’s involvement in their separation?

First of all, what a cracking cover. Whoever designed this cover did a stellar job – I’d pluck this from a bookstore shelf in a heartbeat. It’s bright and bold, and quirky. This cover serves well to attract a young, female audience.

“Astrid had worked in a café on Frith Street. It was a greasy spoon owned by a fat, old Italian man called Giorgio and I’d got into the habit of going there because I thought I was in love with a girl, Kathy, who lived across the street.”

Voyeur is definitely a plot-driven story, with quite a large cast of characters moving in and out of the timelines. I’d describe this novel as quite colourful, because it moves between moments of quiet interaction to more intense moments between multiple characters – loud, chaotic and abrupt. A lot of our experiences with Leah and Michael happen during quiet moments of introspection and reflection, but elements of their personalities are also revealed when they’re surrounded by other people. Moments of outburst force the two characters to confront their insecurities.

Moving between past and present, we get an intimate insight into both Leah and Michael’s lives, before and after they meet each other. Narrative strands are interwoven seamlessly, but I did find Michael’s arc to be a lot more interesting to read than Leah, who felt just a little too aimless to be interesting. A lot of people in this world will be able to relate to Leah, but does that mean we want to read about her?

“I thought a lot at that time about how I would have done university differently. Although I’d been largely unaware of it then, I could see now that I’d spent the first two years in dumb awe.”

Strength lies in the storyline of the past – Michael’s younger self and how his relationship with Agatha unfolds. In the present storyline, there doesn’t feel like much of a connect between him and Leah, and their story seems to be missing something.

Truthfully, Leah is quite a dull character – a bit flat. Michael is an unlikable person but he’s got more depth to him, and he’s more interesting to read about. I’m not sure we get as much insight into who Leah really is. When I read the blurb, I sensed comparisons with Lolita and The Virgin Suicides, but I feel like the novel lost its way and didn’t quite live up to expectation.

“It was only then that her identity became apparent and I realised that as a chronically bored teenager I’d read her newspaper column every Saturday. My brain started to involuntarily access all the images I’d invented and stored, lying on the living room floor on infinitely empty afternoons.”

For readers of literary fiction. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Voyeur
Francesca Reece
June 2021
Hachette Book Publishers