Book Reviews of the Week: 29.06.20

Finders Keepers By Sabine Durrant

Buy Finders Keepers from your local Bookseller:

‘A masterly slow-burn gripper’ – Louise Candlish


‘Beautifully written and stupendously addictive’ – Deborah Moggach

‘Utterly immersive and compulsive. Pace, place, characters, plot … It’s a masterclass’ –  Gill Hornby


‘Riveting from the first page to the last. No one creates characters like Sabine Durrant. I was completely enthralled.’ – Clare Mackintosh


‘Extraordinary … a beautifully written, gripping cross between Notes from a Scandal and Gone Girl, with a dash of Eleanor Oliphant. Ridiculously good’ – Mark Edwards


‘Completely WONDERFUL, her best book yet. I utterly loved it and could not put it down. Sabine has such a gift for those exquisite, telling details’ – Marian Keyes

One of the hotly anticipated reads of the Summer from the bestselling author of Lie With Me, Sabine Durrant’s Finders Keepers, is a slow-burning thriller of sheer immersive brilliance. It tells the story of a busy couple who move next door to Verity Baxter, an unmarried woman who at the age of 52 has never moved out of her cluttered, dilapidated, hoarders house. Set in Tooting Bec and Balham, it is the story of neighbours starting an unlikely friendship and sharing secrets. All is fine until Verity’s creeper seeps through the shared garden fence just as Verity does the same with the Tilson family. Everyone is hiding something and what is that pervasive smell emanating from Verity’s house? A chilling page-turner. Thrilling. 

Finders Keeper by Sabine Durrant is Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton £14.99

The Joyful Environmentalist by Isabel Losada

Buy The Joyful Environmentalist from your local Bookseller:

“She gave my spirit a lift and my feet somewhere to stand.” – Sir Mark Rylance

“This is the joy we need in our lives. This book, practical and realistic as well as visionary, will keep that positive message before the reader’s eyes. Joy is after all one of the best motivations we can have for change.”  George Monbiot

Why does environmentalism have to be so depressing? Why can’t we find positive ways to save the planet that don’t make people feel bad about themselves? Isabel Losada’s new book breathes joy and life in to the well-worn subject of saving the planet. The style is breezy brilliant and most importantly, entertaining. Much like her brilliant previous book, The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment, Losada has taken a difficult and often dull subject and infused it with enthusiasm as well as practical ways of change. From moving your bank account, to drumming with Extinction Rebellion to the fantastic re-wilding project of Knepp run by Isabella Tree – this book is full of life, energy and hope. Super Green!  

The Joyful Environmentalist – How to Practise Without Preaching – by Isabel Losada is published by Watkins Media £12.99

The Truants by Kate Weinberg

Buy The Truant from your local Bookseller:

‘While Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is a clear influence, it’s Agatha Christie whose work is most explicitly referenced, stoking an ominous sense of impending calamity.’ – The Mail on Sunday 

‘A coming-of-age story and campus novel rolled into one, it is given greater depth by the shadow of Agatha Christie, who stalks the pages. With deft characterisation, plenty of mystery and twists in the tale, it had me gripped.’ – The Daily Mail

‘An impressive debut.’ – The Times

‘Set to be the book of the summer.’ – Town & Country

Already a huge hit in hardback, The Truants, now out in paperback, is a coming of age story set on a university campus in Norfolk. Incorporating issues of belonging and toxic friendships within a fast-moving, wire-taut narrative, Weinberg’s impressive debut carries echoes of The Secret History whilst very much retaining its own identity. A band of student misfits with dysfunctional backgrounds, the professor with oddly intimate student-teacher bonds, things are about to take a wrong turn … Threaded into the story are references to Agatha Christie’s novels, with their mysteries and murders and love triangles. The Truants twists and turns and draws you in and plays you along, always with the knot of dread at the pit of your stomach. Gripping.

The Truants by Kate Weinberg is published Bloomsbury Publishing £8.99

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