Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
We’ve spoken about this one before, but it genuinely just might be our favourite thing we’re read all year. A whip-smart, sardonic and at times painfully messy coming-of-age story set in New York’s haute cuisine industry. Buy it, read it, love it, recommend it to your best friend.
The Muse by Jessie Burton
If you liked The Goldfinch and The Girl With A Pearl Earring, you’ll love this: an intricate, exquisite novel about a mysterious painting, a forbidden love affair and a civil war, from the author of the 2014 breakthrough novel The Miniaturist.
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, famous authors are taking on some of his classic stories. We’ve already had The Merchant of Venice and The Winter’s Tale (Margaret Atwood’s The Tempest and Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth are still to come later this year). This is Pulitzer prize-winner Anne Tyler’s take on The Taming of the Shrew, a very funny, very silly little book that you’ll read in one sitting.
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
All the reviews of this intriguing title are calling it the successor to Harry Potter and Phillip Pullman, and that it is, with a touch of Charles Dickens thrown in there for good measure. Imagine a world where sin is rendered visible as puffs of smoke, and the upper class will do anything to keep themselves clean. The premise is fascinating, and what unfolds when two boys uncover a conspiracy at their fancy boarding school in industrial era-England is fantasy at its very best.
The Toy Maker by Liam Pieper
A toy maker discovers a secret about his family’s connection to Auschwitz that threatens to tear his perfect, perfectly-formed life apart. This book is for anyone who loves the slow-burning twists and turns of WWII narratives like The Book Thief and The Reader.
