Tuesday, 17th March
The Hiding Season by Ava Glass
After a painful divorce, Maya Landry is in desperate need of a fresh start, which she finds deep in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Maya’s relieved when she’s hired as a summer keeper of billionaire-owned ski lodges left empty after snow season ends, and her new life of peace and isolation is going exactly as hoped . . . until she stumbles across a dead body on the living room floor of one of the lodges. There’s no cell service on the resort, and by the time she’s able to find a signal and call the police, the body is gone. In fact, there’s no evidence a body was ever there at all.
The police think Maya is unstable, and she’s not convinced they are wrong. But later that night, a stranger walks up to her and tells her that someone knows she was up on the mountain that day, someone willing to kill to keep their secrets. She’s not sure whether to believe him . . . until the killers come for her in the dead of night. Maya narrowly escapes, only to find that same mysterious man waiting to rush her away. But can she trust him? Can she trust anyone? Only one thing is certain: The people who committed the murder are coming for her. Maya is the only person alive who might reveal what happened up on the mountain. And they want her gone.
Thursday, March 19th
Who’s the Favourite? by Catherine Carr
For most of us, our sibling relationships are the longest we will ever have. Whether loving or fraught, competitive or codependent, these bonds shape us in lasting ways.
In this heartfelt, judgment-free book, Catherine Carr invites us to look at our brothers and sisters beyond the labels assigned in childhood. Combining real-life stories with expert insight, she explores birth-order stereotypes, favouritism, trauma, blended families, only children, siblings with additional needs, and the pain of estrangement and bereavement.
These relationships are rarely straightforward but thinking about them more deeply may help us better understand ourselves and the world around us.
California Gold by Jodie Chapman
Hardback, Penguin Michael Joseph UK
Frank and Chrissy meet a few days into ’70. Frank has been travelling around California for a while with friends, when someone tells him about a house in the desert two hours east of LA where the walls are steel and the glass shimmers. Frank tells himself: I have to see this house. When Chrissy picks him up on the side of the road, all blond hair and oversized sunglasses, it’s love at first sight.
Years later, as their shared dream of recreating a mid-century masterpiece of a home in Britain threatens to overwhelm them, Frank will often think about how this was where it started. What if he had carried on walking, kicking at the dust? What if she had driven to Palm Springs the next day or even the next hour? Every moment of tomorrow would have completely changed.
