Tag: Read

My Week in Books – 28th June 2026

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On the blog last week

Monday – I shared my review of Murder at the End of the World by Akane Araki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood which will be published by Pushkin Vertigo on 2nd July.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday top was Books On My Summer 2026 To-Read List.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. I also published my (long overdue) review of Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell.

The space where other reviews should have been except it was too hot to think.

Saturday – I joined other gardeners for #SixonSaturday sharing six things from my garden this week.

New on my shelves

Little Spark by Jess Kidd (Canongate via NetGalley)

A secret cannot stay locked away forever.

Bodkin Bell, orphan, pickpocket and survivor, doesn’t know where she came from, but she knows she’s different. Gaslights flare as she walks past. Cutlery spins. Shocks fly from her fingertips.

For years, she was ‘Little Spark’, the star of an electrifying travelling act – until it went too far and she ended up in a London gaol.

Now she’s been offered a way out. A chance to serve at Point Mote, a vast, desolate house marooned on the misty Kent marshes. There, she will assist a reclusive family of cunning inventors in the creation of automata: miraculous, lifelike machines for which gentlemen collectors will pay handsomely.

But this house of wonders hides mysteries too. As Bodkin starts to question why she is really there, she unearths secrets that have been buried bone-deep for years – and a truth beyond all imagining. One that was never meant to be found.

The Taper Man by Nick Harkaway (Viking via NetGalley)

It is 1965, and the Cold War has never been colder. The Circus – the secret centre of British intelligence – has one prize asset left in Moscow: a senior Red Army officer with access to the enemy’s deepest secrets. But when a British agent is shot in Helsinki, George Smiley uncovers a Soviet operation that imperils this irreplaceable source.

The trail leads Smiley not to Berlin or Vienna, but Los Angeles – the most foreign place he has ever known. There, in the murky heart of US intelligence, a Communist sleeper agent – a ‘Taper Man’ – is poised to expose Britain’s operative in Moscow. To save him, Smiley must navigate an America riven with political tension, all while his spy in Leningrad, Roy Bland, risks everything in pursuit of a Russian defector who holds the final piece of the puzzle.

Doom Painting by A. K. Blakemore (Granta via NetGalley)

It is 1381. England, reeling from plague and years of conflict abroad, is a tinderbox waiting to spark. Two childhood friends ride into the town of Brentwood, Essex, where they come upon an altercation with a local Justice bent on squeezing more coin from the masses. Thus begins a rebellion of the common folk – loyal to the king, but not to those wealthy landowners who curtail their freedoms; the multitude finding cause against the powers that threaten their livelihoods.

Set over sixteen days, Doom Painting roves across England as the revolt grows and swells and the rebels march to London to take their demands to the child-king Richard II. Out of the rebellion emerges its enigmatic and charismatic leader Wat Tyler, an opportunistic and mercurial rogue whose morality is birthed by the cause, and who shapes an identity for the English which has never been lost.

Seething Lane by Jack Jewers (ARC, Moonflower Books)

January 1670. London is enduring its worst winter in decades. But for Samuel Pepys, the darkest days are yet to come.

When a strange young man turns up at his office on Seething Lane asking for help, Samuel Pepys is too distracted to take him seriously. Nell Gwyn is about to make her scandalous return to the stage and he wouldn’t miss it for all the world.

But in the cold of a winter’s dawn, tragedy strikes. Called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a libertine aristocrat, Pepys discovers that the dead man is connected to his mysterious visitor in the most shocking way possible.

A trail of secrets leads Pepys from the backstreets of London to the glamorous world of the theatre, where nothing is quite as it seems. But whatever the dangers, he may find that the deadliest threat lies closer to home…

What I’m currently reading

I’m reading historical novel Daughters of Naples by Diana Giovinazzo, due to be published by Crooked Lane Books on 21st July, and I’m continuing to devour Land by Maggie O’Farrell. Both are on my list for the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge. I’m also trying to squeeze in The Artist by Lucy Steeds before attending an author event next Tuesday.

Look out for…

  • Book Review: A Fatal Love by Louisa Treger
  • Book Review: Country People by Daniel Mason
  • Book Review: Throw Away the Key by Jason M. Hough

Book Review – Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell @northodoxpress

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About the Book

Lincolnshire, 1914. As the First World War approaches, three women are living, isolated between the unforgiving marsh and relentless river of the fen. Their lives are held fast by profound grief, haunted by the spectres of the past. Trapped by the looming presence and eerie stillness of a hospital that has never admitted a single patient.

Eleanor longs to escape with the man she loves, leaving her sister and memories behind. Clara’s violent marriage threatens her and her children’s safety. Lily, resolute and unyielding, will do whatever it takes to preserve the past and keep her family unchanged, regardless of the cost.

Format: Paperback (384 pages) Publisher: Northodox Press
Publication date: 12th February 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Paper Sisters on Goodreads

Purchase Paper Sisters from Bookshop.org [ Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

I’m not sure you could come up with a more atmospheric setting for a novel than this. A house on the remote Lincolnshire Fens, separated from the nearest village by a wide stretch of river which can only be crossed by a swing bridge. And beyond the house, a hospital which has never housed a single patient. ‘Dark, squat against the earth, an abandoned sentry to the fen beyond.’ Yet there’s also a feeling of claustrophobia because of the intensity of what is playing out inside the house.

Eleanor, Lily and their brother Frank have all been profoundly affected by a tragic death. Frank, now estranged from his sisters, has become an angry, bitter man often erupting into drunken violence, with his wife Clara the main victim. Lily’s grief seems to have triggered a descent into madness, so much so that Eleanor fears for her sister’s safety and locks her in the house when she visits the village. Or more likely, the hospital because Eleanor spends her days going through the ‘practised and pointless’ routine of folding towels, cleaning floors and changing sheets on beds that have never been occupied.

Before long we realise there is a sinister game being played out between the two sisters, a contest of wills in which Lily appears to have the upper hand. In one memorable scene, the sisters stand either side of a locked door, each straining to hear sounds of movement from the other, waiting to see who will yield first.

Eleanor’s mistake is to underestimate Lily’s capacity for manipulation and her determination to ensure they remain a family unit. Only their sister-in-law Clara sees through Lily’s wiles and understands her objective is to destroy any chance of Eleanor marrying John, the local blacksmith, and allow her to break free from her constrained existence.

There’s another factor though. This is 1914 and the first inklings of war are starting to appear, such as the compulsory purchase of horses by the army. Soon the young men of the village are joining up, fuelled by feelings of patriotism. For those left behind it means uncertainty, worry and a dashing of hopes for the future. Ironically for others, it brings a respite, even the possibility of a different future. Soon, of course, the news is one long roll call of those killed or wounded, some of whom have suffered life-changing injuries both physical and psychological.

Both Eleanor and Lily are women of extreme emotions. There’s screaming, crying, pounding on doors. So much so that at times it all felt rather frenzied. I struggled to find any redeeming features in Lily. I found myself urging Eleanor to recognise she was being manipulated whilst also appreciating her feelingsof responsibility for her sister. My favourite character was Clara – astute, courageous and determined to do whatever was necessary to protect her children.

There’s an undercurrent of tension throughout the book, a sense of a pressure slowly and inexorably building so that, even before it happens, you know it’s inevitable there’s going to be some sort of explosive finish.

Paper Sisters is an atmospheric story of simmering emotions and the weight of secrets.

In three words: Emotional, intense, dramatic
Try something similar: Blasted Things by Lesley Glaister

About the Author

Rachel Canwell is an author who, having grown up in the Fens, has lived and worked in Cumbria for over twenty years.

Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies. Her collection of flash fiction Oh I Do Like to Be was published in 2022 and her novella-in-flash Magpie Moon in 2023.

Paper Sisters is her first novel. (Photo/bio: Publisher website)

Connect with Rachel
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