Some books for your consideration

The Safekeep, Confessions, Cleopatra

Confessions by Catherine Airey started very well. It is 2001 and 16 year-old Cora’s father, Michael, has died in the World Trade Centre attacks. With her mother dead, Cora is now an orphan. Her Irish aunt, Róisín, invites her to live with her in Ireland, as she is her appointed guardian.

Very promising set-up! I was looking forward to seeing Cora come to terms with Ireland. But the POV then abruptly switches to Máire (say More-ah), who is Cora’s dead mother. I must declare here that a shifting POV is my most hated editorial framework, but even accounting for that Máire is an unlikeable, borderline nasty person and I didn’t want to spend time with her. Yes, okay, there are signs that she may be a candidate for a serious mental health diagnosis but the author has failed to make her sympathetic nevertheless.

After this the POV switches to Róisín, Máire’s sister, and my eyes really started to glaze over here. Then the POV switches to another person and then another and then there’s a whole section that’s just letters - augh! - and there wasn’t enough of a through-line - for me at least - to keep me focused or interested in all these new characters. It felt like the book was starting all over again in every section and I couldn’t stay with it. But I do get a sense that this is my failing, not Airey’s.

It becomes apparent that this book is fundamentally about Irish abortion law and the Magdelene Laundries. While these are important subjects, and the Irish are still coming to terms with it all, I do hope that Irish authors are at some point allowed to move past this. If I was an Irish writer I’d be a bit annoyed that all publishers seem to want from me is Catholic woo woo, abortion and Guinness.

Picture this: your brother’s annoying girlfriend comes to live in your house. This is the main plot of The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. There is a big reveal within this, so I won’t say too much about this, but it’s a very good odd-couple pairing of Isabelle: uptight, tall, repressed and Eve: short, extrovert, passionate. It was sold to me by Hannah Swerling as “two lesbians in a house in Holland”, but it’s more than that. Give it a whirl if you haven’t already.

Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons follows in the wake of other authors bringing famous women from ancient times to life. In this book we follow Cleopatra from her precarious teenage years, (her father was a douche, she co-ruled with her brother, who was a mega-douche), through the Caesar years and beyond. At times this feels a bit like it’s pitched at a younger audience than me (i.e. everyone) but it’s actually very compelling. It doesn’t quite have the literary dazzle of Madeleine Miller, but very little does.

In other literary news, I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but many of you will be excited to know that the works of Barbara Pym are being turned into a telly series by the same production company that made The Dig.

How about you? Are you reading something very good at the moment? Please inspire us all in the handy comment section below.