Book competition: Win a paperback copy of The Women by Kristin Hannah
Janet Gordon, who lives in Takeley, reviews best-sellers and debut fiction for the Indie
Two Inches of Ivory by Malcolm Day (Troubador Publishing £12.99)
I absolutely love Jane Austen’s novels – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice and re-read the novel – and 2025 is the 250th anniversary of her birth.
Author Malcolm Day has woven the fictional life of the Austen family, sourced from all manner of letters, biographies and memoirs.
It’s such a fascinating glimpse into their world and into the Regency way of life.
I really want to go to Jane Austen’s house in Chewton, Hampshire, where she spent the last eight years of her life, and also Steventon, where she was born, just 23 miles away.
A Foundling at the Wartime Bookshop by Leslie Eames (Penguin £8.99)
Back in September last year I spoke to author Leslie Eames, who lives in a Hertfordshire village not too far away from Bishop’s Stortford.
Published next week is the last in her Wartime Bookshop series – and what a heartwarming ending to the series this is.
A baby is found in Churchwood, left in a conspicuous place so that the good-hearted ladies will find and look after the babe.
There is plenty of heartbreak as the story progresses. Oh, but there are so many happy endings.
Memorial Park by Louisa Scarr (Canelo £9.99)
This is the second in a new series featuring Iggy, a German shepherd police dog. Oh, and his handler, PC Lucy Halliday.
I’m such a softie. I won’t watch films or read books if there’s the slightest chance that one of the animals dies. In fact, I still haven’t seen Bambi!
Luckily, PC Halliday takes good care of Iggy. This outing centres on the search for a missing three-year-old who vanishes from a park in a split second.
It’s a terrific police procedural and an insight into PC Halliday’s life as well as Iggy’s and Moss’, his doggy friend and a victim recovery dog.
I don’t know how I missed the first in the series, Gallows Wood, and I’m about to download it right now.
Louisa Scarr also writes the scariest of chiller serial killer thrillers under the name Sam Holland.
The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan (Head of Zeus £15.99)
I’ve reviewed the DS George Cross series in previous columns and, just out in hardback, the latest is The Bookseller.
George Cross is eccentric, lacks empathy and combines dogged persistence with a determination to do everything the right way – his way – and most people would describe him as autistic. And this is definitely one of my very favourite detective series.
The first book in the series was The Dentist, quickly followed by The Cyclist. Both became internet sensations and led to a traditional publishing contract.
Then came The Patient, The Politician, The Monk, The Teacher and now The Bookseller. With each novel, George’s unique personality evolves even further.
George is investigating the death of a well-known rare books bookseller and, as is usual for him, he totally immerses himself in the world of rare books and the way in which the whole rare books thing works, so much so that he could sit in the Mastermind black chair.
I absolutely adore George Cross and his wonderful way of interviewing the suspects, who simply can’t believe that this detective is allowed to interview them in the way he does.
If you’re a detective fan, you’ll love George.
Tea on Sunday by Lettice Cooper (British Library Crime Classics £9.99)
Older readers may remember the name of Lettice Cooper, who was writing back in the 1970s. Tea on Sunday was published in 1973 and nowadays I guess this would be described as a locked-room, vintage-type mystery.
Alberta, named after her father, Albert Mansbridge, hates being alone in her house on a Sunday afternoon and so hosts a Sunday afternoon tea party. The guests are due at 4pm prompt – Alberta hates lateness.
Her guests include her accountant, her doctor, a young ex-convict friend, an Italian gigolo, her nephew Anthony and his girlfriend Lisa.
Alberta’s couple (man and wife who “do”) are always out on a Sunday afternoon, but have prepared tea and left it ready.
But the tea party doesn’t happen. They knock and bang and run round the corner to the phone box to call her, but no answer. Eventually they call the police…
This is part of a reprint series by the British Library. It is also republishing a Women Writers series with the most wonderful covers. If you pay a visit to the British Library and its shop you’ll be able to see the whole series in glorious colour. And they have bookmarks! I do love a bookmark.
The Women by Kristin Hannah (Pan £9.99)
Since The Women was published in hardback in February 2024, over three-and-a-half million English-speaking copies have been sold and it has spent 43 weeks on the NY best-sellers list. I reviewed it then, but the paperback is out on February 13.
The story centres on Frankie McGrath, whose family tradition is that of the military – but only for the men.
So when Frankie’s darling brother is killed flying a helicopter mission during the Vietnam War, Frankie is determined that the family military tradition is going to include her and she enlists as a nurse, much to her family’s distress and horror.
But Frankie is determined and she too is sent to Vietnam, where she is plunged into the thick of surgical chaos.
The pages of this novel bring to life the horrors, trauma and all-round mayhem of a surgical unit on the front line.
Kristin Hannah details the way in which returning service personnel who have been diagnosed with PTSD can obtain help – but, once again, only if you’re male. Time after time, Frankie is told “there were no women in Vietnam”.
I urge you to read this book as it’s an absolute masterpiece. I read it laughing, crying and so completely choked up over some passages that I needed a single malt whisky literally to calm myself. It was the best book of 2024 on so many best-seller lists and Warner Bros are now developing it into a film.
I can’t praise this novel highly enough – it’s magnificent.
COMPETITION
Two lucky Indie readers can win a copy of the paperback edition of The Women, courtesy of Pan Macmillan. To be in with a chance, simply answer this question. When was The Women published in hardback? Was it a) January 2024, b) February 2024 or c) March 2024.
Send your entries to Book Competition, Bishop’s Stortford Independent, 7 Palmers Lane, Bishop’s Stortford CM23 3XB or email letters@stortfordindie.co.uk with ‘Book Competition’ in the subject line.
Entries close at 5pm on Wednesday February 12, 2025. Please include your address in your competition entry.
