The Things We Thought We Knew

Debut novels come and go, every writer has one inside of them. Some writers come later in life, some come after years of writing at university. Sometimes they come from the spirit of youth.  Mahsuda Snaith is one of those youthful writers, who wrote a novel first draft at the age of 16 went to university and returned to it finding amongst the cringeful first draft errors only experience would notice, a book that was full of well-rounded characters.

The Things We Thought We Knew, tells the story of Ravine, a young British Bangladeshi woman who lies in her bed plagued by chronic pain syndrome following the disappearance of her friend Marianne. They were best friends yet Ravine is trapped to her bed. The novel follows the belligerent mother, Amma, who will not take a no for an answer from her daughter, prompting her to get out of bed and vote knowing she is capable of progress.

"Council estate life has been represented in literature before, but always in a very dark, gritty way. That just wasn’t my experience of growing up on a council estate: it wasn’t all doom and violence and drugs, some of the stuff I came across was quite comic, so I wanted to reflect that.”

Ravine is drawn as a rebellious teen who wants to remain in her fixed state and not alter her surroundings.  That is what the book is about, change and how it changes people around it. Starting at Ravine's 18th birthday party and the impending election she can vote at, Amma makes a beeline to change her domestic surroundings and move Ravine from her funk.

Written with delicate nuance with clever observations of familial relationships and interpersonal behaviour, the book is also about recall and memory - it easily could have been placed in the same genre of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, yet this is set in a Leicester council estate which gives the book greater character and realism than Green's wonderlust piece.

Snaith's debut novel is one that will contain something for everyone and wish more books were written such as it.

The Things We Thought We Knew is released from Penguin Random House on 15th June in Hardback/eBook

EXPOSURE by Helen Dunmore

Set in London during the first year of the swinging Sixties, Helen Dunmore’s newest novel tells the story of a married couple whose life is turned upside down when a work colleague asks for a favour one night. In a world, where a spy could be a friend or a neighbour, or a colleague or lover.

The Cold War has made people very wary of trusting people, and the shadow of the Iron Curtain looms large over London. Simon Callington and his wife Lily, live happily in London with their three children while he works for the Ministry of Defence.

Simon comes from a privileged background and has turned the back on his family owing to his difference to his older brothers in size and style. Lily, was a Jew born in Germany, and her Mum left Germany before the war for England and made Lily forget about Germany and her language and she has to learn English word for word from scratch.

Simon’s work colleague with the favour is Giles. An older man who is going to be out of time during the 1960s. A man of more softer times who prefers the way things were after VE Day. Giles likes to drink during work hours and this drinking leads to an accident at his home.

From there on, the plot thickens as Simon becomes embroiled in espionage and ideas above his station promoting arrests, backstabbing and that puts Lily’s welfare in danger as well as the introduction of the villainous Julian Clowde.

Dunmore has created a good novel, in the sense that this reader found it engaging throughout with a delicate pace and tone, helped by the tricky notion of switching focus intermittently from initially Giles to Simon and then predominantly Lily for the second half of the novel. Dunmore delicately navigates the tricky matter of sexual behaviour with great candour and honesty, not apologising for it nor excusing the behaviour of those involved and how experimentation in your youth does not set a course for the rest of your adult years.

In the hands of a less accomplished writer, the book may well have floundered like the seaweed on the Kentish coast following a storm, yet there is enough intrigue to sustain the readers attention and enough characterisation of Lily to hold our sympathy.

The book has been brilliantly researched mentioning moments of the era to evoke a different time and place effectively such as the mention of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and even the way people talk with their mannerisms.

In a time where the notion of gender politics is very much at the forefront of the social conscience, it is pleasing to see a novel with a headstrong female character doing what she does not for materialistic values but instead for the core values of family, loyalty and hope.

Lily does what she does for the good of her family, and after the shocking revelation to her eyes and ears, she accepts the man she fell in love with prompting a fitting finale that will look good on the screen should that ever materialise.

Exposure is a page turning novel full of twists featuring a bevy of characters entwined in a story featuring betrayal and menace.

It is published by Hutchinson Books on 28th January 2016

The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me

Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice have known each other since they were at university. Today they have written a novel together incorporating influences ranging from David Nicholls to the romantic comedy of Richard Curtis.

The novel, tells the on and off again romance between Alex and Holly from their days as teenagers in Yorkshire in 1999 to the present day in London. Holly is a PA sleeping with her boss and in love, whilst Alex moves down to the big smoke as a teacher.

Holly is settled and happy with her boss Richard, yet the arrival of Alex on the scene creates more intrigue.

Using the narrative device of each writer taking their same gender voice, it offers differing perspectives and both sides of the story.  Whilst it could be considered a gimmick the surprising aspect is how similar in voice both Holly and Alex are, they sound a lot like each other and perhaps that is a way of convincing us they are meant to be together.

The flipping of narrative time from present day to 1999 is reminiscent of Nicholls' One Day but whereas Nicholls afforded his characters fifteen years to grow, here you feel Holly and Alex are very much different from their teenage selves, with the past merely a means of showing what might have been.

Book lovers of Lisa Jewell and Mike Gayle as well as those who actually like Love Actually will no doubt read this book in one sitting. The book has a great tempo and feel to it that can withstand a typical Curtis happy ending which although generic is nevertheless successful.

The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me by Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice is out now in paperback from Random House for £6.99

Follow the authors on twitter @LauraAndJimmy