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Fentum press, £ 9.99
In a cottage in the Norfolk countryside lives retired academic Fran accompanied by her imaginary companion Jane Austen, who continues to provide concise commentary on what is going on around her. Fran’s closest friend is Annie, another former academic, who is aware of Austen’s ghostly presence. The two older ladies team up with middle-aged American author Rachel, former student Annie Thomas and graduate student Tamsin to retrace the footsteps of Percy Shelley from Wales to Venice. The experience binds them tightly, and Fran, Annie, and Rachel have made their home and confinement together, inspired by Shelley’s ideas about a utopian community. Under the literary and historical preoccupations of their conversations emerge themes of friendship, feminism and the journey in life, until a tragedy shoots their consciousness of their mortality. It is a novel without history and without sensation which cultivates a soft and autumnal atmosphere and takes the time to explore its themes.
HONEY AND DIGUE
CE Fremantle
Penguin, £ 8.99
He is 1628 in Oxfordshire. Hester, who was raped and left pregnant by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is raising her son with his younger sisters, Melis and Hope. But Villiers decided to get the boy back, and the sisters flee, hiding in Shropshire. Three women living with a child around this time can’t help but draw attention to themselves, so when Villiers sends a certain Lieutenant Felton to kill them and bring the boy back, their days are surely numbered. As Fremantle has woven real people into his fiction, history buffs will be able to deduce where the story is going, but otherwise it’s a tense, rhythmic cat-and-mouse game with the constant threat of discovery in it. a rich historical context. Points can be deducted for the sisters ‘terrible decision-making, but added back for how Melis’ premonitions add a supernatural tinge to an already dark Gothic atmosphere.
KEEP HOME
Tice Cin
And other stories, £ 11.99
An exciting new talent debuts with Keeping the House, which takes place amidst the tight-knit but sprawling Turkish Cypriot community of north London in the first decade of this century. It features a large and diverse roster of characters, with some only making fleeting appearances, but the focus is on single mom Ayla, mom Makbule, and teenage daughter Damla in Tottenham. Damla’s father is imprisoned, leaving Ayla with a batch of heroin to move, which she does, before she finds an inventive way to import heroin from Turkey in cabbage shipments. Damla, meanwhile, forges a friendship with Cemile, who is more precocious sexually, a relationship that will be at the heart of her journey through her adolescence. There are other strands to this mercurial novel as well, which has a raw energy and inconsistency that can seem reckless and unruly, but Cin makes its inequality a virtue, reflecting the patchwork and organic nature of a vibrant community.
