I read a lot of books in May!

• Keep Them Close by Sophie Flynn (proof)
• Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
• Crossing the Lines by Amanda Huggins (re-read)
• The Bad Sister by J A Corrigan
• That Night by Gillian McAllister
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (re-read)
• The Burning Girls by C J Tudor

Keep Them Close is Sophie Flynn’s second novel and is due out in July 2022. It’s a gripping and intense psychological thriller, exploring the double-edged sword of anonymous internet forums. Chilling, creepy and frighteningly plausible with a clever twist. Well worth a read!

Considering there are more than 2,000 years between the publication dates of Letters from a Stoic by Seneca and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, you might think they wouldn’t have much in common, but you’d be wrong! I was surprised how much I picked up from Seneca’s letters about handling the ups and downs of daily life. I underlined a lot of passages (sorry!) to come back to later.

I also found Digital Minimalism eye-opening in its explanation of how social media platforms and apps are designed to make sure you spend as much time as possible on them. I think we all know this on some level, but it doesn’t stop you getting sucked in. There are some good strategies in this book to tear you away from your devices. I managed to follow some, but not all, of the advice and it is recommended if you are worried about how much time you spend online.

In May, I did an event at Marsden Library with author Amanda Huggins, so I reread her novella, Crossing the Lines. This is a coming-of-age road-trip story set in the American mid-west in the 1970s. Beautifully written with wonderful descriptions of the American landscape and some unforgettable characters.

I am appearing at Essex Book Festival in June in conversation with J A Corrigan, so I took the opportunity to read her latest novel, The Bad Sister. This is a gripping thriller about the relationship between three surviving sisters from a toxic family, and a tragic event that reverberates through their adult lives. It has some parallels with Gillian McAllister’s novel That Night, in which three siblings cover up a murder in Italy. The siblings are very close, but can they really trust each other?

Jude the Obscure is one of my favourite novels of all time, but I hadn’t read it in a while. It’s always a pleasure to return to the classics as an adult because you read them so differently than you did when you first encounter them as a teenager. I remember really identifying with Jude as he struggled to achieve his ambitions of becoming a scholar, but this time I was intrigued by the women in his life and the difficult decisions they had to make. The book has such a tragic ending which still has the capacity to shock even though I knew it was coming.

C J Tudor is one of my favourite writers. I have loved all her books, but I think The Burning Girls might be my favourite so far. The main character is a vicar who moves to a country parish and soon discovers some pretty dark secrets. It has a bit of horror intertwined with a gripping thriller and I absolutely loved it!