The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman (Virago £20, 336pp)
The Kindness of Strangers is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Emma Garman’s debut opens with a dead body in a pool of blood on the floor of a London lodging house. This is an intriguingly tricksy story told by the home’s five very different inhabitants, all with secrets to hide and lies to uncover.
The 1953 setting is perfectly realised by Garman, with smoky, boisterous pubs and down-at-heel drawing rooms. Her vivid characters find themselves at the mercy of old-fashioned ideas that compress their lives into clandestine shapes.
There’s bohemian landlady Honor, aspiring writer Robbie, party girl George, Jewish refugee poet Saul and Mina, very young and very ambitious. They all offer a different perspective on the soon to be murdered Jimmy Sullivan, who upends their carefully maintained facades.
Opening the door on a house of mystery
The House Of Boleyn by Tracy Borman (Hodder & Stoughton £22, 416pp)
The ever-entertaining Tracy Borman adds a sprinkle of speculative spice to the familiar story of whip-smart Anne Boleyn’s undoing at the hands of her intractable husband Henry in the ‘writhing snake pit of the court’.
Unusually, these two figures don’t take centre stage; here the limelight is shared with a broader range of characters, whose take on the situation and the years that follow adds a freshness to this oft-told Tudor tale.
Hever Castle itself plays a major role: its busy kitchens and quiet bedrooms witness the feelings, thoughts and actions of both servants and those they serve.
Here, Thomas Boleyn is revealed as a loving parent, rather than a politicking parvenu, Uncle Norfolk is as nasty as ever, while Anne, pining for a lover who’s not the king, advances towards her inevitable doom.
Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh (John Murray Press £22, 336pp)
Pitching science against the supernatural, Ghost-Eye explores the interconnectedness of everything, including reincarnation, quantum physics, ecological collapse and lives echoing across ages and continents.
At the heart of the novel is Ghosh’s wonder for the natural world and his keen awareness of its wounded state.
His belief that the Earth needs a miracle to reverse its precarious position leads the novelist into all kinds of unlikely scenarios, allowing magical realism to overwhelm starker reality.
Set in the Covid years, the Brooklyn-based, staid middle-aged narrator Dinu recounts his involvement with a mysterious case of a reincarnation in 1969 Calcutta. He finds himself recalling his own past life as he’s drawn into an outlandish plan to save the planet.
