THE Reading room
Great reads
THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood, Vintage
The most anticipated book of the year is Atwood’s sequel to her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, 34 years after the original. And while it may not pack the same punch, this is racy addictive storytelling. Fifteen years have passed and Offred is out on her own. Through three narrators – brutal Aunt Lydia and Offred’s daughters Agnes and Nicole – we witness the advancement of Gilead via explosive testaments.
TIDELANDS by Philippa Gregory, Simon & Schuster
Gregory moves away from the Tudors with a new series, set during the English civil war about ordinary people. Heroine Alinor’s greatest hope is to survive without falling into poverty. She’s a herbalist whose abusive husband has disappeared, leaving her to fend for the family. Against a background of Oliver Cromwell dethroning King Charles I, this first instalment highlights the danger for women who speak out.
THE CONFESSION by Jessie Burton, Picador
orbing tale of love, d, friendship and rom the author of he Miniaturist, features a dual time frame flitting between 80 and 2017. Connie, an lluring novelist of some renown, meets 20-year-old Elise by chance on Hampstead Heath in London, igniting an unexpected relationship. It is Burton’s language as much as her plot that beguiles, and soon you are lost in both.
