Content area
Full text
The Woman on the Ledge by Ruth Mancini (Penguin, out now) Life is not going according to Tate Kinsella's plan: once a TV actress (well, if you could call an advert a job), she's now working in a bank. As no one wants to befriend anyone who's only there a short time, she's at the company Christmas party but isn't enjoying it. However, life has something else to throw at her when she meets another woman who is contemplating ending things. They bond, in a way, and share secrets about what's wrong in their lives. But the following day, Tate is arrested for murder, a murder of someone she met for just a few hours. What happened? The story skips back and forth as readers begin to put the pieces together. But it's not looking good as the police are able to find holes in Tate's story… A clever idea and an even cleverer plot. Piglet by Lottie Hazell (Doubleday, January 25) Such an interesting, clever read. Told through the medium of food — and dialogue — this is the story of Piglet, whose wedding day to Kit is almost here. Food is important: Piglet, a childhood name, will have a nosey in your trolley when at the supermarket. Her upcomÁine ing wedding is something about which she delights, it giving her the chance to reinvent herself, almost as if what had previously happened was just in her imagination. However, she finds out an awful truth about Kit and things begin to crumble. Will she follow the rules, just as she would a recipe, or divert from what is expected? I love books where the main characters aren't particularly likeable, and Piglet is that. On the surface, it's a relationship-based novel, and it is, but it equally deals with relationships around food and body image.
The First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (Headline, out now) Evie Porter is the middle of a whirlwind romance with a perfect boyfriend, a picket-fenced home and a new group of friends. It's all she's wanted: stability. But Evie has been created: she's not real and exists only to do her job, find her mark and head off to...