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SWEET SORROW by David Nicholls (Hodder £20, 416 pp)
SWEET SORROW
by David Nicholls (Hodder £20, 416 pp)
Adrian Mole meets The Swish Of The Curtain in this lovely coming-of-age romcom about acting and the class divide by the author of bestsellers One Day, Us and Starter For Ten.
It’s 1997 and 16-year-old Charlie’s just left school after flunking his GCSEs with no idea what to do next. His mum’s left home and he is living with his depressed, boozing dad in a grim flat.
Cycling around his council estate and working in the petrol station seem like the only options. So when a chance encounter with posh, pretty Fran leads to a local theatre company, Charlie decides to join up.
In the outdoor production of Romeo And Juliet he’s cast as Benvolio, Romeo’s cousin. But Fran becomes his Juliet anyway, and an intense summer of teen passion results.
Charlie discovers sex, Shakespeare, true friendship and the middle classes; pretty good in six weeks’ holiday, it has to be said.
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WHISPER NETWORK
WHISPER NETWORK by Chandler Baker (Sphere £14.99, 352 pp)
by Chandler Baker (Sphere £14.99, 352 pp)
This is a poolside treat. One of those novels you put down reluctantly and long to get back to all day.
In a #MeToo great big, glossy, drama, friends Ardie, Grace and Sloane are high-powered lawyers in the same glitzy Dallas firm.
The CEO has just died and Ames, the man (obviously) mooted to replace him, is an ocean-going sexist pig who assumes droit du seigneur over the office women. When he moves in on a new girl, the three friends decide to act. They launch a lawsuit, but when Ames jumps off the building, things take an unexpected turn.
A great read, brilliantly written, in which class, betrayal and friendship take centre stage.
THE CARER by Deborah Moggach (Tinder £16.99, 272 pp)
THE CARER
by Deborah Moggach (Tinder £16.99, 272 pp)
The mystery at the heart of this joyous novel is the identity of Mandy, the fat and common carer looking after elderly, middle-class James. His children, Phoebe and Robert, are increasingly concerned: she’s making him watch Countdown and taking him to Lidl! And does she have designs on his dosh?
Mandy hits back by mercilessly exposing the siblings’ self-delusions; Phoebe’s a failed artist, Robert a failed novelist, and both have utterly disastrous love lives.
It’s a sustained satire on smug middle-class mores, like a deranged Archers omnibus. Can there be higher praise?
