Book Off!

Women’s Prize shortlisted author, Lily King, and previous Women's Prize winner, Tayari Jones, join Joe for this week’s Book Off!

They discuss their new novels, co-parenting Koalas, Ann Patchett, lovers, desire, chosen family, female friendship, mothers, Oprah and the many many forms of love.

We LOVED this chat - and hope you do too!

THE BOOK OFF
'The Transit Of Venus' by Shirley Hazzard
VS
'Song Of Solomon' by Toni Morrison

And here's a little more info on our guests' new novels:

'Kin' by Tayari Jones
A yearning for their missing mothers pulls Vernice and Annie apart. It will take a devastating tragedy to bring them back together.
Vernice and Annie are 'cradle friends', born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle.

Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her.

'Heart The Lover' by Lily King
Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules.

She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love.

Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.

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Authors Ava Glass and Anna Mazzola go head to head in a war of the words - pitting a book they love and think that everyone should read against each other in The Book Off!

They also chat to Joe Haddow about their new novels, the corrupt world of billionaires (and their exclusive ski resorts), haunted houses, spies, writing inspirations - and - why writers have pseudonyms.

They also give us some great book recommendations too.

THE BOOK OFF
'The Thirteenth Tale' by Diane Setterfield
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'The Likeness' by Tana French

Which one do YOU think should win? Find out which Joe picks on the latest episode.

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Here's a little more info on our guests new novels!

'The Hiding Season' by Ava Glass (AC Glass)
Maya Landry is in desperate need of a fresh start.
Alone and heartbroken, she finds work as a caretaker at an exclusive ski resort for the elite in the mountains of Montana. Quiet and empty in the summer months, it's the perfect escape.
All Maya wants is to be alone. But she's not alone on the mountain. Someone else is there. A killer with his next victim in his sights.
After Maya finds a body, she must run for her life. One man tells her that he can save her. But can she trust him? Is he everything he claims to be?
Only one thing is certain: the killer will stop at nothing. And Maya is the only witness to their crime . . .

'Notes On A Drowning' by Anna Mazzola (Anna Sharpe)
Alex knows she risks getting fired from her law firm if she takes on another unpaid case, but when she hears Rosa's desperate voice at the other end of the phone, she knows she has to help: the body of Rosa's shy teenage sister, Natalia, has been dragged, lifeless, from the Thames. Alex can't help but think of her own missing little sister. She knows how a lack of answers can eat you alive.

Kat has worked hard to become Special Adviser to the Home Secretary, and is eager to finally put the dark and tragic part of her past behind her. But when she discovers a series of cover-ups, she begins to wonder whether her seemingly perfect new boss could be involved. Then she's shocked to discover a letter that raises worrying questions about a girl found drowned in London... Natalia.

There are complex and painful reasons for Alex and Kat not to work together, but when it becomes clear that there are powerful people involved in Natalia's death, and that other girls are at risk, Alex and Kat must overcome their differences to find answers. Will they save the girls and discover the truth? Or will the high-powered players in this game stop Alex and Kat for good?
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Joe Haddow welcomes two more authors to the Book Off studio - for a war of the words!

This week, he's joined by debut novelists Fran Fabriczki and Sam Beckbessinger, who discuss their new books, writing processes and inspirations.

They talk about Los Angeles (the loves / the hates), wry humour, peri menopause, forging anger into stories and legendary mums. We also get some pretty great book recommendations too.

THE BOOK OFF
'The Book Of George' by Kate Greathead
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'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' by Shirley Jackson

Here's a little more info on our guest's books:

'Femme Feral' by Sam Beckbessinger
EVER FELT READY TO HOWL?

Hyper-competent start up CFO Ellie is 46-year-old and like most women, is already juggling too much. Daughter's not talking to her, husband's not listening to her, and she's got a promotion coming up at work. It's an inconvenient time to be beset by mid-life symptoms: coarse hair in new places, hot flushes, insomnia, losing time . . . finding bloodstains on all her clothing, howling at the moon.

Her doctor diagnoses perimenopause. But it's another 28-day cycle that's taking hold. One involving fur, and teeth, and a not insignificant amount of rage.

Suddenly the troubles in her life - hot flushes, thankless family, spiralling to-do list, oblivious husband, the w*nker promoted above her at work - seem almost . . . bite-size.

'Porcupines' by Fran Fabriczki
Los Angeles, 2001. Sonia is raising her daughter, Mila, alone in the sunny but somnolent suburbs of LA. Her days are a blur of not-quite-illegal business activities, avoiding other moms, and baking birthday cakes laced with rum: minor mistakes that nevertheless remind her she doesn’t belong.

Mila, meanwhile, is juggling violin and swimming lessons and navigating the treacherous social politics of school – all the while trying to get her mother to share something, anything, about her past.

But there are just too many things that Mila doesn’t know:

She doesn’t know that her mother grew up in Soviet Hungary (where getting your hands on a banana was one of the greatest thrills in life)
She doesn’t know that her mother has a sister called Rina (whom she hasn’t spoken to in 10 years)
The only thing she does know about her father is that he was a ‘good time’ (according to her mother)
Crucially, she doesn’t know that there is a very good reason why her mother dodges everyone, from traffic cops to vice principals.

So, Mila concocts a scheme to get her mother, and the man Mila is kind of sure must be her father to reconnect. It involves corralling Sonia into chaperoning an orchestra of ten-year-olds (most of whom seem to be called Megan) on a road trip from LA to San Francisco, and it may just cause their carefully constructed lives to implode.

Moving between Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Washington, DC in the tense years of the Cold War and the bright sunshine of early 2000s Los Angeles, Porcupines is an irresistible novel about mothers and daughters, belonging and reinvention, the things we carry with us, and those we tell ourselves we’ve left behind.
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Sarah Hilary and Sabine Durrant join Joe Haddow for a Book Off!

They chat about their new novels, choosing their settings, 'chalk n cheese' detective duos and balancing darkness and light.

Sarah's book ('The Drowning Place') has ghostly elements to it, so they discuss ghosts and whether the authors believe in them...

THE BOOK OFF
'The Mahe Circle' by George Simenon
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'Your Blue-Eyed Boy' by Helen Dunmore

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Here's a little more info on our guests' books:

'The Drowning Place' by Sarah Hilary
Every place has its ghosts.

Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since.

Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive.

Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present. But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…

'Dead Heat' by Sabine Durrant
Former journalist Matt Grimshaw's life is at a low ebb. He's been 'let go' by the paper where he's worked for years, and his relationship with his long-term girlfriend has come unstuck.

So when an invitation arrives from his two closest friends, Celia and Adam Murphy, to join them at their house in Greece, he jumps at it. It may be harsh and unwelcoming on the Mani Peninsula but Matt determines to stay there for the whole summer and to write his much put-off screen-play.

But then the Murphys plus children arrive, and a wealthy newcomer to the area starts throwing loud and lavish parties in his big house across the bay.

As the nights become hotter and the parties wilder, everyone's motivations darken. Envy rises, resentments grow - until a terrible accident stops the summer in its tracks.
At least, it looks like an accident…

Set over one blazing Mediterranean summer, Sabine Durrant’s new thriller is tense, claustrophobic and utterly gripping.
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Joe Haddow welcomes two bestselling authors - Claire Douglas and Jane Harper - to Book Off to go head-to-head in a war of the words!

They chat about making fictional settings seem as real as possible, how a sense of place can shape a novel, and why you should ALWAYS write down your ideas, you never know when you might need them.

Jane and Claire also talk about knowing when to give up on a novel - rather than pushing through if something's not working - and how some books come easier than others.

The two authors also give us some brilliant book recommendations - and writing advice!

THE BOOK OFF
'The 13 Storey Treehouse' by Andy Griffiths
VS
'Tom's Midnight Garden' by Philippa Pearce

But which one will win?

Here's a little more about our guests' new books:

'Last One Out' by Jane Harper 
Five years ago, Sam Crowley vanished on his twenty-first birthday. The only clues were his footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses.
One set in. One set out.
Now, his mother Ro returns to the dying town of Carralon Ridge. The community is a ghost of its former self, fractured by the encroaching mining operation and years of unspoken grief.
Ro is looking for answers. But in a town where everyone is leaving, the few who remain are guarding closely held secrets.
In this disappearing landscape, can Ro find the truth before the dust settles forever?

'The Family Friend' by Claire Douglas
When Imogen is told she’s inherited a country house near Bath, she thinks it must be a mistake. She last saw its owner, reclusive artist Dorothea Roe, sixteen years ago, during a tragic summer which changed her life for ever.
Now, with partner Josh in tow, it’s a chance for a fresh start.
But after discovering an old box with her name on it in Dorothea’s abandoned study, Imogen starts to believe the woman was trying to send her a secret message.
And when rumours begin to swirl that Dorothea was murdered, she starts to suspect that this gift might not be the life-line she thought it was.
Who would want to kill Dorothea?
Could it be tangled up in Imogen’s own dark family history?
And what if Imogen is now the one in danger?
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