The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Rating: A+

Quite simply one of the best books I read this year, Shipstead weaves the story of the female aviator Marian Graves through with the lost actress Hadley Baxter (set to play Graves in a forthcoming film) with ease. It is intricately plotted, with both protagonists intensely complicated but likeable in their own ways. A long but enjoyable read.

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

Rating: B-

If you liked Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times, this is a good follow-up read. Granados tells the story of Isa and Gala – two girls trying to make it in New York. Both are complicated, problematic and not at all likeable, yet the prose is pithy and intoxicating.

A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin

Rating: B+

Drawing on the famed club The Wing for inspiration, Laura Hankin’s satirical look at an all female club and the power they hold in New York is clever, witty and immensely readable. Though readers will be familiar with the strange turn the plot takes, if you trust the prose and go with it – this makes for immensely entertaining reading.

Exes & O’s by Amy Lea

Rating: A-

Amy Lea is a bright new voice on the scene. This new rom-com is delicious, light and filled with a plethora of clever insights hidden beneath an immensely speedy and likeable prose.

The Binding by Bridget Collins

Rating: B+

This took a while to get into, but is worth the uphill climb, Bridget Collins book tells the story of a man learning his craft as a bookbinder (binding people’s memories into books so that they can forget). It’s clever and makes you think hard about the power of memory and regret.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Rating: A+

Perhaps the best book I read in 2022? Gabrielle Zevin’s story of friendship between two game-makers Sadie and Sam, who meet as children, before going on to form an industrious partnership is compelling and dazzling – weaving a story about the power of friendships, identity, misunderstanding. It’s a book about loss, disability and is so incredibly layered as to make it an intoxicating and dazzling read that we could read again and again.

The post Everything We Read in December 2022 appeared first on off the record.

The Last Thing He Told Me, Laura Dave (4th May)

A gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life—until he disappears.

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

Pick up a copy here.

Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead (4th May)

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger.

In 1950, she embarks on the great circle flight, circumnavigating the globe. It is Marian’s life dream and her final journey, before she disappears without a trace.

Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a brilliant, troubled Hollywood starlet is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves, a role that will lead her to probe the deepest mysteries of the vanished pilot’s life.

An enthralling journey over oceans and continents and a drama of exhilarating power, GREAT CIRCLE is perfect for book clubs and fans of William Boyd and Donna Tartt.

Pick up a copy here.

Ariadne, Jennifer Saint (4th May)

A mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe.

Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice.

Pick up a copy here.

Arsenic and Adobo, Mia P. Manansala (6th May)

One of BuzzFeed’s Highly Anticipated Mystery Novels of 2021!

The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer….

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She’s tasked with saving her Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

Pick up a copy here.

That Summer, Jennifer Weiner (11th May)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Summer comes another timely and deliciously twisty novel of intrigue, secrets, and the transformative power of female friendship.

Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?

Pick up a copy here.

The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz (11th May)

When a young writer dies before completing his first novel, his teacher, Jake, (himself a failed novelist) helps himself to its plot. The resulting book is a phenomenal success. But what if somebody out there knows? Somebody does. And if Jake can’t figure out who he’s dealing with, he risks something far worse than the loss of his career.

Pick up a copy here.

Notes on Grief, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (13th May)

Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. 

Pick up a copy here.

Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid (29th May)

From the author behind The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six comes one of the most hotly anticipated novels of the summer. Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.

Pick up a copy here.

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