Enjoy Life

More March 2023 must-reads

On the Bookshelf

More March must-reads, selected by Simon Evans

A Lesson Learned, by Rosie Goodwin (Zaffre, £12.99), set in mid-19th century Nuneaton, tells of a young girl who dreams of a better life beyond the canal boat she shares with her hard-hearted father and sick mother,

The Flour Mill Girls, by Anna Cliffe (Zaffre, £8.99), is the first of a new saga series set in the heart of Kent during the First World War, and

The Woolworth Girl’s Promise (Pan, £7,99) is the eighth in Elaine Everest’s Woolworths series, this time following 17-year-old Elizabeth Billington as she attempts to rebuild her life following the death of her fiancé at Ypres.

Paris Requiem, by Chris Lloyd (Orion, £16.99), is an absorbing thriller that also paints a vivid portrait of Paris life under occupation during the autumn of 1940, a policeman is stranded in a town full of ex-convicts in Stuart MacBride’s gripping The Dead of Winter (Bantam, £20), and in 

If I Tell, by Gil Perdue (Penguin, £8.99), a tricky police interview with a mysterious young girl brings back unhappy memories for one of the detectives involved. The book was previously published in hardback as The Interview.

Unlikely Animals, by Annie Hartnett (Hodder, £9.99), is a moving novel about family, friendship and loss that manages to be both at times quirkily surreal as well as rooted in the realities of small-town life, and 

The Best True Crime Stories: Crimes of Famous and Infamous Criminals (Mango, £16.99) is the latest in the excellent series of true crime anthologies edited by Mitzi Szereto, this time focussing on celebrities, including Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and Lord Lucan.

Coinciding with the 50th-anniversary release of Pink Floyd’s landmark LP Dark Side of the Moon, Us and Them, by John Blake (Nine Eight, £22) is the fully-illustrated history of Hipgnosis, the ground-breaking design company responsible for the album’s sleeve, amongst many others, and

The Best is Yet to Come (Sphere, £7.99), is the latest heart-warming novel from Debbie Macomber, a story of loss, grief and new beginnings.

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes (Vintage, £20), is the product of six year’s painstaking research by fashion historian and museum curator Kate Strasdin, charting the fabric of how Victorian women lived through a unique textile scrapbook, and pet lovers of all ages will enjoy Waiting for Cats, by Maggie Holden, with illustrations by Denis Stapleton (Austin Macauley, £8.99). It’s a charming selection of verse imagining what cats might be thinking as they keep watch all day.

All books are available from Amazon and other outlets.

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