The point is further proven in Lucy Atkins’s fourth novel which begins with Felicity, the eight-year-old daughter of the Master of an Oxford college, going missing. We know from Inspector Morse that the families of Oxford academics are far more dysfunctional than those on the most run-down council estate. And she discovered that it held the key to her mother’s identity, and unlocked family secrets.īY EITHNE FARRY Magpie Lane, by Lucy Atkinsįinding My Voice by Nadiya Hussain and Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins She was so young that she had no recollection of it, but to her daughter Laura, the kidnapping demanded investigation. Then she was discovered in a house 12 miles inland.

Betty’s mother raised the alarm and the police were called but, for five frantic days, there was no news. One day in 1929, Laura Cumming’s mother Betty – then aged three – was snatched away from Chapel Sands beach in Lincolnshire. But slowly Zoe, Hari and the people around them help each other to heal.īY ANDREINA CORDANI On Chapel Sands, by Laura Cumming The reality – draughts, dirty dishes and three feral children – is very different. So when she’s offered a job working as an au pair in a Scottish manor, she seizes the opportunity, picturing herself as a Highland Maria von Trapp.

Life is tough for Zoe – she’s cash-strapped, tired of London and anxious about the fact that her three-year-old son Hari refuses to speak. Mirror Book Club: Elly Griffiths, Anne Enright, Graham Swift and Ann Cleeves reviewed This brilliant writer brings the Fab Four’s personalities to glorious life in a book crammed with fascinating facts and intriguing ideas.īY JAKE KERRIDGE The Bookshop On The Shore, by Jenny Colgan Others are devoted to a public figure – Margaret Thatcher, Rolf Harris, Charles Manson – and how the Beatles affected their lives.Īnybody Brown doesn’t find interesting is out so there is barely a mention of Linda McCartney, while there’s page after page sending up poor old Yoko. Some chapters look at reproductions of fan letters, from the sweet to the borderline psychotic. As you’d expect, there are detailed chapters on the sacking of drummer Pete Best and the group’s first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.īut there are many imaginative touches too. There are 150 chapters, many very short, that explore a particular aspect of the group, from the band’s beginnings as The Quarrymen in 1957 to their 1970 split. Now Brown has done the same with the Fab Four. Mirror Book Club: Pete Paphides, Joseph Knox, Robin Muir and Joanna Trollope

On chapel sands book