This week’s rundown of the best reads new in shops now includes an essential read in the form of a powerful and challenging novel in which the #MeToo movement takes centre stage.
An author makes an unforgettable debut with a novel set in rural Nigeria.
Victorian London is the setting for a creepy, Gothic tale.
A governess has fallen in love with a swashbuckler in aan enthralling family saga.
And Sebastian Barry is back with a follow-up to award-winning Days Without End.
My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Fourth Estate, £12.99
Power, grooming and the #MeToo movement are central to this compelling debut novel about the illicit relationship between a 15-year-old student and her teacher.
When Vanessa Wye enrols at an upmarket boarding school a few hours drive from her rural home in Maine, she struggles socially and quickly becomes isolated when she falls out with her only friend Jenny.
So she is already vulnerable when 42-year-old English teacher Jacob Strane shows an interest in her, singling her out in class for special attention.
We see everything that unfolds through Vanessa’s eyes and she is convinced she is embarking on a passionate love affair. But to the reader, Strane’s creepy advances are clearly well-practised grooming.
As the novel progresses, the timeline flits back and forth between Vanessa’s time at school, and her life as an adult. At 32, she is working in a dead-end job in a hotel and spends her nights alone in her flat, smoking weed.
Although her relationship with Strane ended in her late teens, she is still obsessed with him and can’t see the relationship for what it was – abuse.
But when another former student accuses Strane of sexual abuse, Vanessa’s great love is suddenly reframed as a paedophile. This powerful and challenging novel is an essential read.
BY MERNIE GILMORE
The Girl With The Louding Voice, by Abi Daré
Sceptre, £12.99
In rural Nigeria, 14-year-old Adunni has few choices in life. All she wants is an education – something to give her a “louding voice” so people will listen to her.
Forced into an arranged, brutal marriage, Adunni flees to Lagos, only to be sold into domestic slavery working for Big Madam, a super-rich fabric saleswoman.
But her last house girl disappeared and Adunni vows to find out what happened. This is a compelling, captivating and unforgettable debut.
BY MERNIE GILMORE
The Doll Factory, by Elizabeth Macneal
Picador, £8.99
In Victorian London, Iris earns a living painting faces on china dolls alongside her twin Rose.
But she harbours artistic ambitions and when handsome artist Louis Frost wants to paint her, he transforms her world. Iris is “so full of joy that it seems as though it can never be extinguished”. Until, slowly, slowly, breath by breath, it almost is.
She becomes estranged from her sister and finds herself at the mercy of extremely creepy taxidermist Silas with his penchant for “curiosities”.
Gothically good.
BY EITHNE FARRY
A Village Scandal, by Dilly Court
HarperCollins, £7.99
Governess Daisy Marshall has fallen madly in love with the swashbuckling Jay Fox.
It’s April 1869 and Daisy is marrying Jay in the Essex village of Little Creek. But the day ends in disaster when Jay vanishes, leaving a mountain of unpaid bills in his wake.
Daisy makes ends meet by hiring out his ship to deliver cargo and renting out their manor house.
But the secret of Jay’s disappearance turns out to be far more shocking than Daisy could ever have imagined.
An enthralling family saga.
BY EMMA LEE-POTTER
A Thousand Moons, by Sebastian Barry
Faber, £18.99
Sebastian Barry fans first met Thomas McNulty, John Cole and their adopted daughter Winona in the award-winning Days Without End.
Winona’s family were massacred in the Civil War, in which both McNulty and Cole fought.
Now the trio live contentedly on Lige Magan’s farm in Tennessee, alongside freed slaves Rosalee and Tennyson. But the nearest town is lawless and one night Winona is raped.
As she seeks justice, she ends up on trial for murder.
A vivid and enthralling novel.
