The Mole's Top Ten books of 2016

My reading list for the year is never as extensive as Maryom's (in the main part because she reads a great deal faster than me) but that doesn't mean that I didn't read some fantastic books as well. I have reviewed my year and extracted the best although there were many others that only just missed out.

In no particular order....

Carrying The Fire - Michael Collins

I grew up at the height of the space race and was caught, for much of my youth, by the wonder and promise that the space race seemed to offer. I avidly read any newspaper articles or watched TV programmes that even vaguely touched on the subject. Originally published in 1974 and republished 40 years later, this book gives a great deal of insight into the space program and Mike Collins - the man.

The Climb - Chris Froome

I became most interested in cycling because of my father-in-aw who watches it avidly and assumes everyone else does too. There's a magic to the Tour de France that can easily catch you and drag you in and our youngest has caught the bug. This book tells the story of the rise of this young rider who had no privileges to help him along the way yet still went on to win the greatest bike race of all time.

It's Just The Chronospehere Unfolding As It Should - Ira Nayman

I have read a few books by Ira Nayman and they all have a zany humour that closely matches my own but this one is his best to date - In My Opinion.

Girl In Danger - Leigh Rusell

The second Lucy Hall Mystery and it feels very much that Lucy has come of age. A great second novel in the series.

Happy Birthday Old Bear - Jane Hissey

Old Bear is one of those story book characters that I shared of lot of time with as our youngest was growing and somehow he, and his friends, remain kind of special to me.

The End - Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings - edited by Ashley Stokes

Short stories are things I generally enjoy a great deal and this collection is unusual because fifteen paintings were created with one thing in common - The End was part of the picture and fifteen authors then wrote short stories that the images inspired - a project that worked wonderfully.

The Book of Ralph - Christopher Steinsvold

This quirky SciFi novel surprised me immensely and I was surprised we didn't hear a great deal more about it.

The King's Revenge - Philip Womack

The last of the trilogy brought the story to a conclusion(?). A book every bit as good as the first in the trilogy and that's frequently not the case.

North of Porter by Kirkland Ciccone

As ever Ciccone has produced a quirky and extremely entertaining novel that has become his trademark. Once again this is probably his best to date.

Talisman - Paul Mudoch

A story of wizards and magic and well meaning friends, family and neighbours.
Book 1 in The Peck Chronicles and now book 3 has been published. It was very much the characters that won me over in this book but we can all be swayed by the fantasy of magic.

Warning Cry - Kris Humphrey

Rather negligently I didn't read the first in this series but was swept along by this story and the concept of a series where there is little character interchange between the books - although the chronology and overall arc does move forward. A great read. Book One's title involved wolves at a time when wolves were appearing on so many book covers which is why I overlooked it.

Maryom's Top Ten of the Year - 2016

It's that time of year when everyone seems to be doing their 'round-ups' and 'best of...' lists, and I'm not going to be left out. I've already done a rather different summing up of the year in Reading Bingo, but here are my favourite books, the ones I feel sure I'll read again and again, the ones I'll be thrusting at people saying "you must read this" ... anyway, here's my Top Ten of the Year ...





First up, a book that I think everyone should read - You Shall Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris This is the account of the first few weeks following the author's wife's death in the terrorist attack on Paris' Bataclan nightclub last November. While the press and social media were filled with hatred, fear and calls for vengeance, Leiris declared that to give way to such feelings would be to let the terrorists win, to also cripple his own life and that of his small son. So instead, he resolved that, despite over-whelming grief, he would continue to live as full a life as possible. It's a book filled with loss, love, horror, and, ultimately, hope.






Breach by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes is a specially comminsioned book from Peirene Press, bringing to life the individual stories behind the statistics and news reports about the refugees in the Calais 'Jungle', taking the reader behind the stereotypic image, and reminding us that above all they are people like us - who just happen to be running from persecution or a war zone, trying to earn money to send home, or just hoping to be reunited with their families. Another 'mut read'.








The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon also looks at the way we treat outsiders - but a little closer to home. During the long heatwave of 1976, Mrs Creasy goes missing from her home - and the strange man at Number 11 is immediately suspected of somehow being behind it. It's a story about 'us' (the sheep) and 'them' (the goats), and as events unfold it makes you think about the way a community may treat outsiders, how anyone who doen't quite fit or is a little 'odd' can be ostracised and victimised by the rest of us who consider ourselves 'normal'.







Cove by Cynan Jones  A man out at sea in a kayak is struck by lightning - left drifting, out of sight of land, his sense of direction lost, even his sense of self. All he has to cling on to is his animal instinct which pushes him towards land and home. Jones proves again that a huge word count isn't necessary to make an impact; Cove is less than a hundred pages, doesn't contain a single surplus word, but captures the helplessness, confusion and fear of this man adrift at the mercy of tides and currents. Is it, though, the personal story of one man, or a metaphor for anyone adrift in life, like Stevie Smith's swimmer "much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning" ?


A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker is a book about choices. The German invasion of France poses a dilemma for a young Irish writer - he can return to his family in Ireland, stay there safely for the duration, or, as a citizen of a neutral country, remain in Paris with his lover. Choosing to stay poses another question - should he sit by while the Germans take over, or join the resistance? I love Jo Baker's writing style - the capturing of intense, intimate moments, then building with them to bring a fictional world to life - but what particularly appealed to me about this 'true' story was its 'hero', Samuel Beckett. Having read his books at school, I'd rather had the impression of a dull, geeky guy, obsessed with words and meanings. Jo Baker's story sheds light ona very different side of him - still that odd, literary chap but one with an unsuspected quiet courage.


All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan Melody Shee is thirty three, abandoned by her husband, pregnant by a Traveller boy barely half her age, frightened, angry, full of guilt - and amazingly brought to life in the first person by a male author! Melody's story revolves around several threads - the difficulties that can at times surround something we take for granted, the birth of a child; the gradual wearing away of a loving marriage by constant recriminations; the way a community makes its own unwritten rules and judges anyone who doesn't conform; and how inflicting pain and suffering on others can bounce back on the giver. Ryan's writing just seems to go from strength to strength, with each novel.


 

Melissa by Jonathan Taylor The death of Melissa Comb is marked by a strange phenonomen - a burst of music, spreading happiness and pride among her neighbours. The only people who don't hear it are those closest to her - her immediate family, hiding behind closed curtains, is slowly starting the disintegrate. There's a certain level of quirkiness to this story of a family struggling to cope with grief and the intrusion of the media - it's told in a variety of styles (with snippets from newpapers and scientific journals), it doesn't move in a straight line but starts with Melissa's death and moves back to her illness before moving forwards, and seems to only gradually work in towards the heart of the story - but I found it irresistable!

Death and The Seaside by Alison Moore  is a strange, disturbing tale of manipulation, of living up (or down) to people's expectations, and of the interwoven-ness of life and art. Nearing the age of thirty, Bonnie has had a life of missed opportunities, but now her new landlady, Sylvia, has taken an interest in her - encouraging her writing, making plans for a holiday together. Sylvia has an interest, though, in self-fulfilling prophecies, suggestibility and how expectation influences behaviour; the future doesn't really look that rosy for Bonnie. A psychological drama of subtle oozing menace.

The Museum of You by Carys Bray Like Bray's first novel, A Song For Issy Bradley, this is a story about a family trying to cope with death. Clover and her dad Darren form a small, tightly-knit, loving family, but at its centre is a gaping hole left by the death of Clover's mother, not long after Clover was born. To Clover, she's an enigma, someone she's never known but would love to know more about; Darren finds talking about her too distressing and 12 years later still has the spare room full of her belongings. Sad, funny, and heartwarming this story charts their attempts to bridge that gap, as the two try to communicate across the gap, and Clover searches through the hoarded things in an attempt to piece together an image of her mother. Tender and compassionate, it's a joy to read, and Bray has again turned a story with tragedy at its heart into something positive and life-affirming.

Fell by Jenn Ashworth Ashworth is an author I've been intending to read for some years, and, at last having got round to it, I realise what a delight I've been missing. Despite the older work sitting on my TBR pile, I started with her latest, Fell, an atmospheric, beguiling story of home and family, regrets and reconciliation - and loved it. Middle-aged Annette has returned to her childhood home to clear it out and sell it off, but the ghosts of her parents have other ideas. It isn't what you would really describe as aghost story though -  it's rooted firmly in reality, just laced with something otherworldly much like Sarah Winman's A Year of Marvellous Ways or Lucy Wood's Weathering, both of which were among my picks of last year.

That's Ten, my favourites from this year's publications - but I've also loved some older books which, in all fairness, I ought to have read before now.

Firstly, it may be odd, and I'm definitely late to the party, but this is the year I've finally realised what is so great about Neil Gaiman. I'd read some of his work before but having read and loved both The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Neverwhere this year, I consider myself changed from a casual reader to a fan!







Another party to which I'm a late arrival is the Fitz and the Fool series by Robin Hobb. I've had a free download of the first book Assassin's Apprentice sitting on my kindle for seemingly ages, but hearing that after 15 books the series will come to an end next year I've eventually been spurred on to read it - and again discovered something magical and engrossing that I've missed out on. Reading the series will definitely be part of my reading plans for next year!

Top Ten.. or so.. of the Year - 2015

by Maryom


I've reached the end of my reviewing for this year, so now it's on to the far harder task of picking my favourites.....
A rough count shows I read just over 150 books this year so trying to choose a Top Ten out of them was going to be hard. First I made a longlist - which started out quite tidily but grew scrappier as I added more and more titles to it. Then I tried making a pile of books, to see if this would concentrate my thoughts - which worked fine till I remembered all those 'hidden' books on the kindle.... so back to the 'list' with a highlighter pen..... to pick out those I'd be most likely to thrust at folk and say "you MUST read this" ....

So at last I narrowed my list down to ten .....and a few more...


Weathering by Lucy Wood - a story of mothers and daughters, belonging and home, and wild, wet weather, it's written in almost stream-of-consciousness style, with beautiful prose that slips into poetry. Closely observed, minutely described, it captures mood and emotion, conjures the feel and touch of river and snow with writing that puts the reader so firmly THERE in the landscape that I expected to see snow banked outside my windows or river rushing over the lawn.


Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither by Sara Baume - an amazing debut novel about two outsiders - a man, Ray, and One-Eye, the battered, violent dog he 'adopts'. From the moment Ray takes One-Eye home, he starts to talk to him; as One-Eye is introduced to the house where Ray has lived all his life, as they walk round the village or along the seafront, play football on a deserted beach, and as they drive away from the seaside through Ireland's countryside, Ray keeps up a rambling monologue, ostensibly aimed at One-Eye, describing all he sees, capturing the sights and sounds along the way, sharing secrets and gradually revealing the dark secret he hides. I started to feel that this was more about a dog giving a man a chance at redemption, than the other, more obvious, way round.



A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman - At eighty nine, Marvellous Ways lives quietly, alone but not necessarily lonely, swims in the creek each day, and is still waiting for something, although she doesn't know what. Woven through with magic, with tales of mermaids and long-lost love, this is an absolutely, well, marvellous story. The setting is enchanting, and enchanted, the creek a place of peace and healing, the story-telling lyrical, the whole permeated by myth and magic.





A Slanting of the Sun by Donal Ryan  - a collection of short stories from the author of the Spinning Heart and The Thing About December that will knock you sideways and leave you emotionally drained. The writing style is quiet and undramatic, the characters all people you'd pass on the street and never remark upon, but just listen to the stories they have to tell! If you want something fun and light, that will make you laugh out loud - go elsewhere. If you want a read that will move you, maybe shock you, make you stop and look twice at your neighbours and wonder what makes them 'tick', let you experience emotions that I hope would never befall you in real life, this is the one to choose.

Kauthar by Meike Ziervogel - how does a white, well-educated, British woman become an Islamic suicide bomber? The author draws a portrait of a woman struggling to fill an empty, gaping hole in her life - there never seems to be enough, or maybe the right sort of, love, to satisfy her need, and in desperation she twists her religion to fill that void. Ziervogel again tackles a subject that others might shy away from; only 144 pages long but it doesn't need more.


A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale -  Harry Cane was living a quiet, gentlemanly, suburban life in Edwardian England till an indiscretion brought it to an abrupt end. Forced to leave his wife and child, and strike out on his own, he heads west to the frontier lands of Canada ... not quite in search of his fortune but certainly looking for a place to build a new life, to come to terms with himself and his newly awakened sexuality. A quiet, mostly undramatic but immensely moving book which I've now read THREE times and I still love it. It's definitely a keeper!



 A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson - another quiet, unassuming hero, this time Teddy Todd, a World War 2 bomber pilot. Scarred and numbed by his experiences, and feeling a need to atone for his actions, Teddy decides his life will now be one of kindness, his own slight reparation for the horror of war, but those dreadful years are not shrugged off so easily and his relationships with wife, daughter and grandchildren are all affected. Despite the excellent writing, I couldn't at first see what was SO special about this book - but there's a twist in the tale, and an ending which changes everything.

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North -  Sophie Stark is a film-maker - one who makes visually engaging, often disturbing, films but is unable to connect emotionally at a personal level - in fact she has always found it easier to communicate through visual art. Her story is narrated by the six people who were closest to her, each with a unique insight into her as a person and director - her brother, the guy she had a crush on in college, her actress lover, her singer-songwriter husband, a Hollywood producer/director and a film reviewer. Their accounts build up a portrait of a talented but disturbed young woman. It's an unusual and compelling read - one to check out if you like something a little 'different'.



At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison - We all have an idea, or ideal, of how the English countryside should be - sleepy villages where nothing has changed in hundreds of years, meadows with placidly grazing cows, ancient woodlands, life centred on the turning of the seasons. The reality of heavy farm machinery, migrant workers, the whole modern agricultural business or even cow-pat strewn roads doesn't quite fit that image we have. Into this gap between expectations and reality falls this story of people trying to 'find themselves';  a couple newly moved out of London in search of an idyllic country life; a youngster, born and bred in the village, but into a time when there's no future for him there; and a wanderer, a quiet, harmless man but seen by others as a vagrant, a threat to the established order.


The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett - somewhere between the movie Sliding Doors and Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, falls this tale of Eva and Jim and the different paths their lives could have taken after a chance meeting in Cambridge in 1958. From that initial meeting, three different futures pan out, each fully realised, like reading three different stories. The balance between them is perfect, none is allowed to dominate, but which of them leads to a happier life? At first it seems to be one version, then, as the years pass, another will seem the more appealing. It led me to wonder if I were Eva or Jim and could choose my life, knowing all the permutations, which would it be?



Well, that's my Top Ten, but a lot of them have already appeared on literary longlists for this prize or that, and I'm guessing a lot of readers will have heard of them, perhaps even read them already, so I'm going to include the best of my longlist - a wider-ranging list from literary to sci-fi to crime, and including some older books that I only discovered for the first time this year.


The Sea Between Us by Emylia Hall - This, Emylia Hall's third novel, is the nearest yet to a straight forward love story. The relationship between Robyn and Jago grows and changes over a seven year span, as instant attraction turns to something deeper, but fate seems determined to push them apart. Theirs is a story of missed chances, of so often being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of letters and messages going astray, of other relationships getting in the way - a little bit like Friends' Ross and Rachel, a little like Emma and Dexter from David Nicholls' One Day - but while it's a love story, there's so much more to it than that.
The Summer of Secrets by Sarah Jasmon -  There's a certain sort of mid-teenage point in life when summer seems like it could last forever - a few years earlier you don't appreciate the spread of six weeks freedom ahead; a few years older, and autumn seems already visible at the end of July - and this is what Sarah Jasmon has captured so well - long, lazy, hot days of a summer that feels like it could never end, but with a friendship as intense as only a teenage friendship can be and a thread of hidden secrets.
The Truth According To Us  by Annie Barrows - more hidden secrets, this time belonging to the Romeyn family of Macedonia, West Virginia.  I'd say this was a gem of a book but at 500 plus pages, it's a large show-stopping gem! It's certainly one of those special books in which you can immerse yourself completely; the characters and setting feel as real as those around you, and when (if) you take a break you'll be shocked to find yourself back in real life.
The Rocks by Peter Nichols -   a story of love and betrayal played out over three generations against a backdrop of sun, sea and, yes, sex in the Mallorcan village of Cala Marsopa. Told in an unusual way, it starts in the present and moves backwards to 1948. It's a story of misunderstandings, mishaps and failures in relationships, which doesn't sound like a good read - but it is!
The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela - an amazing thought-provoking read, moving between the present day and the Crimean War, about the dilemma of being torn between conflicting cultures but never quite belonging totally to either, and how sometimes accepting defeat is braver than fighting on.
The Mountain Can Wait by Sarah Leipciger - a moving story exploring the relationship between Tom and Curtis, a father and his son, one intimately connected with nature, one completely rejecting it, and the choices that have to be made between freedom and responsibility. It's a book that will inspire you to get out there, head for your nearest mountain or hill top and soak in the beauty, even if it isn't as magnificent as the Rockies

My top sci-fi read of the year - Touch by Claire North - Imagine that by taking hold of someone's hand, you could become them, could jump from body to body as you wished, and stay there for as long as you liked, from seconds to years. This is what 'Kepler' and others like him can do. Now someone has decided that it's time to stop him - but its easier to evade an assassin if you've some idea of who sent them and why. So begins a game of cat and mouse as Kepler tries to track down the person behind it, while trying to avoid those pursuing him. The thriller aspect is fast-paced, action-packed, full of twists, turns and deviousness. It starts with the 'bang' of a murder and Kepler running for his life, and carries on at this breathless pace; as a game of hunter and hunted it's up there with the best of spy thrillers.

I haven't read a lot of Fantasy this year, but loved Naomi Novik's Uprooted  Set somewhere vaguely in Eastern Europe, in places that sound very like Poland and Russia, it's a coming of age tale, a fight of good against evil, a love story, and one that encourages us to accept people no matter how different they are to ourselves. A fairytale with grit!

 Three crime novels -
Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback takes the whodunnit murder mystery and transports it to a time and place far removed from the modern urban landscape. In the early eighteenth century the far north of Sweden is remote and empty; a place where life itself is a struggle against the vagaries of the weather and the loss of a harvest can mean starvation. In the long, hard, dark winter, wolves howl at the doors, fear and loneliness build and the barriers between 'modern' logical beliefs and old pagan traditions break down.




A Killing Moon is another brilliantly tense thriller from Derby's very own crime writer Steven Dunne. This is the fifth in the DI Brook series and I think I'm getting used to having my home city's streets filled with murderers - at least, fictional ones! A Killing Moon isn't a simple 'guess the murderer' style crime novel. It's one of those books in which things start out quietly, and seemingly simply, but soon escalate, with extra threads weaving their way in, as Brook and Noble find themselves on the trail of a sinister conspiracy targeting young women away from home.

The Living and Dead in Winsford by Hakan Nesser - a stand-alone psychological thriller from the author of the long-running Van Veeteren series. This time the setting is Exmoor, but a British winter of fogs and rain proves as 'noir' as any Scandinavian setting; the main character a Swedish woman, Maria, hiding under a false name, running from something dreadful and fearing pursuit.







I've read a lot of brilliant teen/ya books this year but these two stood out. 

Anything That Isn't This by Chris Priestley - a little bit dystopian, a little bit love story, with a bit of thriller thrown in for good measure, this is a story that captures the confusion of teenage feelings the world over, is about challenging the norm and searching for hope in a dull grey world.



The Door That Led To Where by Sally Gardner - a slippery, twisty sort of plot with time travel, a murder mystery, the clearing up of a forgery case, and the tiniest bit of romance - added together they make a brilliant, compelling read.







and, at long last, the oldies which you've probably already read!

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor - On a late summer's day the residents of a street in the north of England are going about their daily routines. Nothing special is happening - a man is painting his windows, two boys are playing cricket, a toddler rides his tricycle up and down the street, an elderly couple celebrate their anniversary - the sort of things that make up any average day...then something happens, a terrible thing which leaves its mark on all who witnessed it.

The Long Dry   - This is Cynan Jones' first novel and is set in the landscape that's become familiar to me through his later work - Everything I Found On The Beach and The Dig. There's the same grit and grimness underlying the beauty of the landscape, the same feeling of inevitable anguish. It's not all doom and gloom - there's light relief from the teenage son, with his delight in driving the transit van, and the mass 'attack' of the ducks on the nearby seaside town - but moments of joy seem short-lived and over-shadowed by sorrow to come. Much more than a story about a farmer looking for a lost cow!

Diamond Star Halo by Tiffany Murray - set against a backdrop of rock-stars and recording studios hidden in the depths of the Welsh countryside, this is a story of 'crazy love' that breaks the rules, an exploration of the ties of family and home, a coming of age novel, a family epic ranging over three generations,  there's a bit of all these in Diamond Star Halo, and I loved each of them.

An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel - in style and length reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, this is a bitter-sweet, first person narrative of the lives of young women on the cusp between child and adult, at a time of life so full of possibilities, but which could easily tip into tragedy.

Maryom's Picks of the Year - 2014

 Last year I couldn't cut my 'picks of the year' down to a small selection at all. This year, I'm being more ruthless and from an extensive longlist I've chosen a Top Twelve.....

I think there's a tendency to pick more recently read books for a list like this but, just to prove there are exceptions, top of my list is the first book I reviewed this year - Donal Ryan's The Thing About December The heart-breaking story of gentle but dim-witted Johnsey Cunliffe is played out over a year, a chapter for each month, leading to the climax in December; an immensely sad but compelling read.




Sticking with the grim side of life, and another book from early in the year - Cynan Jones' The Dig charts a clash of wills and lifestyles between Daniel, a farmer committed to his land and animals, and an anonymous badger-baiter, earning his living through cruelty. It's raw and bleak, a definite eye-opener for anyone who thinks the countryside is a rural idyll.







In A History of Loneliness John Boyne tackles the fallout from the paedophile scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland. Father Odran Yates has been a priest for forty years, has tried to live a good, blameless life, ignoring the abuses of power taking place around him, but now has to face up to his niggling conscience.






Carys Bray's debut novel, A Song For Issy Bradley, is about loss, hope, faith and family as a Mormon family face up to probably the most devastating thing that can happen - the death of a child. Ian and Claire, and teenage children Zippy and Alma struggle with their faith and their loss; only 7 year old Jacob can see an answer - to work a miracle and bring Issy back. Ultimately hopeful and life-affirming, there are without doubt some dreadfully dark moments but they're balanced by light, humour and love.






  Another family - this time the Saddeqs from Lahore in Pakistan. Roopa Farooki's The Good Children explores the complex relationships within this family- between children and parents, and between children themselves - as they grow up, spread their wings, leave home for England or the US, but always feel that tug that binds them together. It's grand in scale - moving from the1940s to the present day - and size - 620 pages, though it didn't feel a page too long.




I struggle to find ghost stories that scare me, so I was oddly delighted to stumble across this - Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray. While his mother makes plans for a new life in the old family home, Dieter, the boy-heir, encounters a strange ghostly boy with evil designs. With a growing feeling of menace, this is a truly spine-chilling read, probably best avoided late at night.

 Another debut, this time an excellent sci-fi dystopian thriller. Tomorrow and Tomorrow follows grief-consumed Dominic as he wanders through the virtual archive that brings nuclear-blast destroyed Pittsburgh and its inhabitants back to life.  Not-too-distant future dystopia with TV-like 'adware' that constantly streams news, adverts and reality TV style porn direct into the brain, a destroyed city recreated in virtual form, a twisting turning thriller and grief-struck hero combine to create a wonderful, complex story.

 The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh could easily have been just another tale of sun, sea and illicit sex but it's so much more; a perceptive portrait of a family reaching a turning point in their lives, a marriage that's a little too stale, and a woman seeking to re-gain her lost youth by tumbling heads over heels in lust with a hot 17 year old. I absolutely loved it.




The storyline to Hamid Ismailov's The Dead Lake reads almost like a fairy tale - a young boy ventures into a forbidden lake and is cursed for life - but the evil wizard here is the Russian government and the lake has been polluted by atomic testing. The first of Peirene's 2014 Coming of Age series deals with a boy who doesn't grow up, and a whole region caught, literally and figuratively, in the fallout from the arms race. Told in plain, straightforward prose, it's a tale to make your heart ache.






I've read a lot of crime novels over the year but this was my favourite. The fourth of Sharon Bolton's Lacey Flint series, A Dark and Twisted Tide, is set among the old wharfs and  abandoned warehouses of London. A complex story that developed in unforeseen ways, with the story told from multiple points of view and a timeline that jumps backwards and forwards. It's only at the very end that everything comes together - and in a totally unexpected way.







...and to round off my list two rather different 'lighter' reads...

First, something very dark and wicked - Lizzie Prain finds an unusual way to dispose of her husband's dead body as she lovingly cooks her way through his remains in Season To Taste or How To Eat Your Husband. Natalie Young's humour is dark and twisted - think Sweeney Todd meets Desperate Housewives - and not for the squeamish.





Last, not least but certainly the lightest of my list, another debut - from actor Sara Crowe. Campari for Breakfast is a delightfully quirky coming of age tale about finding love and finding oneself. There are family secrets to be unearthed and a ghostly visitor to be braved, while the house threatens to crumble down and desperate ways are sought to save it. I absolutely adored this. It's light, funny and sad by turns, but overwhelmingly full of 17 year old heroine Sue's belief that one day she'll find love and begin to live decadently, sipping campari for breakfast!







Not really eligible for this list were some really amazing books published in previous years; Andrea Levy's Small Island, George Mackay Brown's Greenvoe, and Roopa Farooki's The Flying Man