Summer reading roundup
I read a lot (A LOT) of books. Here's an entirely personal list of the ones I think are worth your case space
IF YOU ONLY TAKE THREE
Strong Roots, Olia Hercules
Sometimes you come across a book and you just know you’re onto something special. Strong Roots is that book. A history of Ukraine and its relationship with Russia through a century in the life of one family (that of cook and food writer Olia Hercules), and the food and stories they passed down. It is utterly transporting, a much-needed history lesson in human form and an instant classic. The hardback has beautiful end papers, too.
• Strong Roots is out 19 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Treasures, Harriet Evans
Harriet Evans has always been fulsome in her praise for Elizabeth Jane Howard’s classic Cazalet Chronicles and that passion is evident in spades in The Treasures, book one of Harriet’s new Sevenstones trilogy that spans one family, three generations and fifty years. The story of Alice and Tom takes us from postwar London to 1960s Manhattan to the magical house in Wiltshire, Sevenstones. If you love a sweeping big house family saga (and who doesn’t?) this has your name on it.
• The Treasures is out 12 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Bombshell, Darrow Farr
No summer reading pile is complete without sex, violence, glamour and an exotic location or three. Throw in multi-layered (occasionally enfuriating) characters and a harsh political awakening and you have The Bombshell. The year is 1993 and the place is Corsica. Severine is a spoiled French teenager about to get a wake up call when she is kidnapped as she cycles to her parents’ villa. If Taylor Jenkins’ Reid (Daisy Jones and the Six, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Atmosphere, all excellent beach reads btw) tackled the abduction of Patty Hearst, you might well end up with something as glitzy and propulsive as this.
• The Bombshell is out 5 June in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.