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During college, I consciously read more LGBT stories to understand and learn to accept love in all forms. And there have been some really great narratives that have changed the way I have looked at love and what I’ve, for far too long, considered as the only accepted version of romantic love. Now, I don’t actively seek out queer stories but I love it when I inevitably stumble upon one. They reaffirm my belief that love is love and that one should be allowed to love anyone.

‘Red, White & Royal Blue’, Casey McQuiston’s debut novel, follows a rivalry-turned-romance trope between the Prince of Wales and the First Son of the United States. Alex Claremont-Diaz, whose mother is running for a second term for president, is passionate and eager to kick-start his own political career. Prince Henry, whose full name is Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, is much more measured and guarded—a stringent follower of decorum and protocols.

The novel begins with the two hating each other but things change when Henry kisses Alex on New Year’s Eve in the Kennedy Garden. Henry is gay. But Alex always thought he was straight. Now, after the kiss, he’s not so sure. And he can’t get Henry off his mind. His feelings for Henry make him realize he is bisexual. What ensues is a whirlwind romance with plenty of political drama. McQuiston indulges in many political fantasies, including Alex’s mom winning the presidency in 2016 (meaning Donald Trump was never the president).

The writing is honest and optimistic. There’s a lot of humor and some really wonderful moments as well. Alex and Henry are endearing and so are the other side characters who don’t feel like side characters at all. There is a lot of discussion about the characters’ aspirations, their concerns for their countries as well as all that they want to do to help the LGBTIQA+ community. It all feels like a pep talk at times.

Red, White & Royal Blue is essentially a love story but it’s also a celebration of identity. If you haven’t read a queer love story, this could be a good place to start as nothing feels forced or fake. The make-believe world couldn’t feel more real. It starts slow but when it picks up, you won’t want to put it down.

My Dashain read was ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ by Richard Osman. The book had been sitting on my shelf for over two years now. I wanted something light and fun to read during the festive season to get my mind off things and I had heard great things about it, with many people calling it a ‘cozy murder mystery’. Osman’s debut book, the film rights of which was snapped by Steven Spielberg, reminded me of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and made me very happy.

Coopers Chase is a luxury retirement village with 300 residents in the Kent countryside in England. Every week, four senior citizens meet to investigate unsolved murder cases. The cases come from the files of a former police officer, Penny Gray, who is also the club’s founding member. But she is now lying comatose at a nursing home. So, it’s Elizabeth, probably a former spy for the MI5, Ibrahim Arif, a psychiatrist, Ron Ritchie, a former trade union hero, and former nurse Joyce Meadowcroft who meet to discuss and solve cold cases.

In The Thursday Murder Club, Ian Ventham, the owner of Coopers Chase, plans to expand the village. But that means having to dig up and relocate the bodies of nuns buried in the cemetery. The residents, especially the religious ones, aren’t happy about this. Then Ventham’s right-hand man Tony Curran is found bludgeoned to death and that soon opens a box of secrets that somebody would like to bury at any cost. Enter the police—DCI Chris Hudson and PC Donna De Freitas—who, along with the murder club members, try to figure out just what is going on.

The book isn’t your regular, pacy thriller. In fact, it’s slow and the scenes don’t flow. There are a lot of personal stories of the characters interspersed within the main narrative. But humor, and prickly British humor at that, is everywhere. The dialogue and scenes are funny. They will make you laugh out loud, even when they deal with serious situations. Osman has created relatable characters who feel like people you know. They make the story come to life. The characters are the driving force of what could otherwise have been a run-of-the-mill story.

The Thursday Murder Club is, at its core, a mystery. But it’s also a novel about friendship, love, loss, and coming to terms with who we are and what we value. Osman also challenges the notion of old age. The four unlikely but immensely lovable amateur detectives or ‘harmless pensioners’ are testimony to the fact that age doesn’t and shouldn’t stop you from doing what you love.

Fiction

The Thursday Murder Club

Richard Osman

Published:

Publisher:

Pages: Paperback

I have read a couple of Lisa Jewell’s books and heard discussions about others on YouTube. Though I have never been particularly fond of any of her works, I don’t know why I keep picking up her books whenever I come across one. It doesn’t make my heart jump with joy but when I see a new book by the author, I always grab it. I had ‘The Family Upstairs’ on Kindle but I still got a paperback copy recently. The cover was gorgeous. Still, I should have saved the money.

Not that the book was bad. But I didn’t really need a physical copy on my shelves. It’s not a book I’ll be recommending people to read. But I know people might enjoy it because it’s a light, pacy read.

A surprise inheritance sends a young woman named Libby Jones down the harrowing spiral of her own shocking history in this domestic suspense that sometimes feels taut and drags on a little in many other places. When Libby inherits a mansion in a posh neighborhood in London, her life, she thinks, is finally changing for the better. But little does she know that by claiming the inheritance she is also taking responsibility for a darker history, that she has a connection to an unsolved crime and a cult-like society. And things are waiting to unravel as soon as Libby makes herself known.

The plot has all the makings of a super gripping read. It is dark and broody. The setting—of cold, bleak London—adds to the claustrophobic feeling. Jewell had a clear concept while writing the book and she has executed that well. The characters are also well-crafted too. But the narrative switches between the past and the present and that’s where you get confused. I can’t really pinpoint why but it’s difficult to keep track of the two narratives and be able to connect them. 

The good thing about the book is that though it’s a thick volume the font is quite big and the chapters aren’t long either. So, you will find yourself getting through it pretty quickly. The plot, even when it drags on, does manage to grab your interest. It feels a little too cliché in some places—like you’ve read the section before (in some other thriller books) or seen a similar scene play out in a movie. But I guess that is a problem all thriller readers can identify with. When you have read a lot of horror/thriller books, everything feels somewhat familiar.

Fiction

The Family Upstairs

Lisa Jewell

Published: 2019

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 451, Paperback

There are books that make you happy—books that are the equivalent of a warm, comforting hug, stories that make you believe everything will be okay despite the odds. ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl is that book for me. This is one of the books, and perhaps the first book, I gravitate towards when I need a little pick me up. 

When I was in school, I got my hands on a tattered copy of Matilda. I had come across it at the Awon library in Kupondole, Lalitpur. I loved it—read it on a balmy Saturday devouring the two Perk chocolate bars that I was allowed on the weekends. I renewed it during my next visit to the library because I couldn’t part with it. 

Soon enough, I bought my copy from Ekta Bookstore in Jawalakhel. At almost Rs 400, it was a pricey book during those days. I’m talking about the 90s here. My parents used to give me money to buy books, mostly the Famous Five or the Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton and the occasional Archie comics. Blyton’s books used to cost around Rs 140, with slimmer volumes priced as low as Rs 98. An Archie comic was Rs 68. So, I had to save up to buy Matilda. I bought one book at the combined cost of several. 

Over the years, I have read Matilda many times. I have bought more copies than I can recollect because I’m always giving them to people. Right now, I have two copies (with different covers) on my bookshelf. Sometimes, I just sit with the book, letting memories of a happier time wash over me. 

Matilda is about a girl named, well, Matilda. She’s a genius. By the age of three, she could do what most adults take a lifetime to learn—take care of herself. By four, her reading list had Hemingway, Dickens, and Orwell among many other prolific, highly celebrated authors. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood, Matilda’s parents, think she’s a nuisance. They think she should watch more TV and read fewer books. Her school principal, Miss Trunchbull, is another terror who despises children. But Matilda isn’t an ordinary girl. She has a few tricks up her sleeves that just might save her and her amazing teacher, Miss Honey.  

It might seem like a simple story when you first read it. But it’s also a brilliant reminder of what the human mind is capable of and how you can often turn your life around with the right attitude. Peppered with Dahl’s signature wit and Blake’s fun illustrations, Matilda keeps you entertained and allows you to forget your worries for a little while. 

Fiction

Matilda 

Roald Dahl

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd 

Published: 1988

Pages: 232, Paperback

A couple of years ago, I watched the Netflix adaptation of ‘Behind Her Eyes’ by Sarah Pinborough. It was a slow-burn thriller about a single mother who unwittingly becomes a part of twisted mind games when she begins an affair with her psychiatrist boss while secretly befriending his mysterious wife. The ending shocked me. I hadn’t seen it coming. I really enjoyed the series but I wished I had read the book before watching it.

So naturally I was excited to come across ‘Insomnia’ by Pinborough. Reading the blurb and the reviews I was sure it was a gripping and unsettling psychological thriller. But it took me a while to get through Insomnia because it was so dark and dense. I’d have to put down the book after a few chapters to process what I had just read.

The plot is actually creepy. Emma has a great life: a successful career as a lawyer, a husband, Robert, and two children, Chloe and Will. But she’s unable to sleep and that is really messing with her head. Emma’s insomnia causes blackouts, makes her doubt her actions and question everything and everybody around her. When the police become involved, Emma starts wondering what she is capable of.

Emma and her older sister Phoebe grew up in foster care after their mother was admitted to a psychiatric facility on her 40th birthday. As Emma’s 40th birthday approaches and she finds herself struggling to sleep, she fears the ‘bad blood’ that made her mother go mad is affecting her too. She can’t trust her husband or her sister, both of whom are hiding things from her. Worse, her son Will is terrified of her and her daughter Chloe is a rebellious teenager.

There is a lot going on and it is all very paranoia-inducing. It’s difficult to trust any of the characters in the book. Everyone seems to have a sinister motive behind their actions. Or is Emma the real villain, her own worst enemy who is as deluded and psychotic as everyone around her is claiming she is? The horror/thriller aspect of the story is subtle but disturbing. It comes unexpectedly and takes root in your heart and mind.

Reading Insomnia also makes you wonder what traits you have inherited from your family. Do we all become our parents and embrace their faults and weaknesses? I can’t say I loved the book but I enjoyed reading it. I would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a scary book to get lost in during the weekend.

Fiction

Insomnia

Sarah Pinborough

Published: 2023

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 342, Paperback

Sally Diamond is strange. She doesn’t always function in the way she’s expected to, meaning she doesn’t fit into society’s standards of ‘normal’. When her dad dies, she puts him out with the trash, because he once mentioned that is what she should do: ‘When I die, put me out with the bins. I’ll be dead, so I won’t know any different.’ This leads to a furor that unravels a lot of secrets of Sally’s past, and all of it happens under the glare of the media and public.

Sally’s father has left her letters and they have details about her childhood that she had never known before. Apparently, the people she thought were her parents were her foster parents and her real mother Denise Norton was abducted as a child. Sally was born in captivity. As she comes to terms with it, Sally also has to learn to be more social and adapt to a world whose ways are alien to her. It’s not easy because she has led a protected and sheltered life where everything has been taken care of for her. She is 42 but she has never had a job and now, without her father to take care of her, she will have to find one. It doesn’t help that as people find out about her troubled past, they look at and treat her differently.

Then, she starts getting creepy mail: an old toy, and a birthday card, that makes her believe Conor Geary, her father and the man who kidnapped Denise, is alive and wants to connect with her. There is also Mark, a guy who seems to be obsessed with her and her past. He’s been asking questions about her and showing up almost everywhere she goes.

‘Strange Sally Diamond’ isn’t your regular thriller. Though it’s definitely a page-turner, the book is character-driven rather than plot-driven. The suspense element is just one aspect of the book and not the main focus. Instead, the book discusses trauma and grief, explores the effects of crime on the victim’s family, and shows how your childhood impacts your life.

Sally is a compelling but complex character. Though she’s the protagonist, she isn’t made out to be a hero. She doesn’t always have other people’s best interests at heart and that makes her relatable. Slightly reminiscent of Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’, Strange Sally Diamond is a thriller where the crime is downplayed and the spotlight is on the aftermath. In turn delightful and disturbing, this is a book that will stay on your mind long after you finish it.

The book is Nugent’s fifth but my first time reading her. I’m going to hunt for her other books and read them all. That’s just how much I enjoyed Strange Sally Diamond. Nugent is quite famous in Ireland and, over the years, her books have been on different bestseller lists. She has also won four Irish Book Awards and the James Joyce Medal for Literature.

Fiction

Strange Sally Diamond

Liz Nugent

Published: 2023

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 363, Paperback

How could I not buy a book about books? I saw the title ‘The Last Library’ on the spine of the book during a recent trip to Ekta Books in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and bought it on a whim. I didn’t even read the blurb. I was reading something else at the moment but I still couldn’t resist it. I started reading it, sitting at Ekta’s newly opened quaint little café at the bookstore premises. It didn’t immediately grab my attention and, as far as my experience with books goes, that’s never a good thing.

 It’s a cute little book. That’s all there is to it. I didn’t love it. But it was enjoyable. I felt like I had read similar books in the past. The plot wasn’t anything new. In fact, it felt a little too cliché. But I also wanted to finish it despite having a strong inkling about how it would end. The characters are interesting, but then again, you’ve met them before, in books with similar plots. Sampson hasn’t been able to develop the characters. You meet them but you never really get to know them. And you end up not caring much about them either.

This standalone novel focuses on a library assistant and her determination to fight for her beloved local library which is threatened to be shut down. Thirty-year-old June Jones has never left the sleepy English village where she grew up. She spends all her time at the library where her mum once worked. She’s the assistant librarian there. When the library is threatened with closure, June has to get out of her comfort zone to save the place that holds so many memories. At the risk of losing her job, she joins hands with a group of eccentric yet loyal locals who start a campaign to keep the library open. In doing so, June builds some relationships that might save her and give her story a new beginning.

The Last Library (The Last Chance Library in the US version), I believe, is perfect for non-readers or those who want to get started with reading. It’s light. You don’t have to invest too much mental or emotional energy and the chapters are short. I felt the book was also a commentary on the importance of libraries as public spaces. In the book, it’s where a lonely old man hangs out, where a teenager escapes her chaotic household to study in peace, and an immigrant builds new connections. I wouldn’t recommend or not recommend this book but if you are a voracious reader, you can give it a miss.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/series/240356-the-last-library 

The Last Library

Freya Sampson

Published: 2021

Publisher: Zaffre

Pages: 364, Paperback

Louise Kennedy’s debut novel ‘Trespasses’ is set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s when the country was going through the Troubles (an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998.) It’s a simple story that feels a little sluggish at times. Kennedy, by her own admittance, came late to fiction writing. Born a few miles outside Belfast, she spent almost three decades working as a chef, before writing the stories that made up her first book, ‘The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac’.

Cushla Lavery is 24 years old and she’s a primary school teacher in Belfast. She sometimes helps her brother, Eamonn, at the family pub, which is a regular haunt of leering and aggressive British soldiers. One day, she meets Michael Agnew. He is handsome and charming. But the Protestant barrister who defends unjustly arrested young Catholic men is also married. Michael asks Cushla to teach him and his friends to speak Irish. He takes her to an Irish-language evening and, on the way home, one thing leads to another and romance ensues.

But romance isn’t the only plotline of the novel. There are other narrative strands. Cushla’s mother is an alcoholic and there’s that mother-daughter dynamic in the story as well. Then there’s Cushla’s relationship with a boy from her class. Davy McGeown is bullied by his peers and Cushla kind of takes him under her wings. Then things come crashing down for Cushla and the narratives intersect.

Through the parallel storylines, you understand Cushla and see why she’s embarked on a forbidden relationship, despite maybe having faulted her initially. Trespasses is largely narrated in a series of vignettes with Cushla’s affair with Michael tying it all together. Violence is so normalized that it’s never actively discussed in the plot. But the threat of death, from bombs and guns, is evident on every page. Some chapters begin with news headlines about deadly explosions and arrests. You realize everything is happening in a war zone. It adds an underlying tension to the story and keeps you hooked.

This is more a character-driven story than a plot-driven one. Kennedy has fleshed out the characters really well and you find yourself empathizing with them all, even the gin-addled Gina. Cushla’s thoughts and dialogues are relatable and you will root for her despite her questionable actions in some instances. Overall, Trespasses is a beautiful and devastating novel that explores a lot of emotions.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60417483 

Trespasses

Louise Kennedy

Published: 2022

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Pages: 311, Paperback