We might only be halfway into 2020, but we’ve already found the best reads of the year. We know, we know, it’s a big call; but it’s going to be tough to beat these mighty page-turners. From family drama to romance, and extremism to adventure, these are the books you need to get your hands on ASAP – according to marie claire Features Editor Alley Pascoe.
Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
Finishing a Marian Keyes novel is like saying goodbye to your best friend at the International Departures Gate; tears and laughs aplenty. The bestselling author’s new release, Grown Ups, has all the makings of a Keyes classic, with not one, but three strong female leads. Meet Cara, Jessie and Nell, three sisters-in-law dealing with life’s big challenges – relationship troubles, self-doubt, money worries, disordered eating, and painful parents-in-law – and pondering the question, is it finally time to grow up? The women are glorious, flawed and so bloody relatable. You’ll want to join them on their next family holiday.
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Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Kiley Reid’s debut novel Such A Fun Age first crossed my desk in November 2019 and I haven’t stopped talking about it since. I’m not alone, Reese Witherspoon picked it for her January Book Club, Entertainment Weekly called it “the most provocative page-turner of the year,” and acclaimed author Jojo Moyes said she couldn’t put it down. Such A Fun Age doesn’t just live up to the hype, it exceeds it. Telling the story of Emira, a black babysitter accused of kidnapping the white child she’s minding while at the supermarket, the novel deals with the messy dynamics of privilege, race, feminism and domestic work. Reid’s voice is fresh, wry and compelling. Jump on the bandwagon now.
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Salt Water And Spear Tips by Thor F. Jensen
When Danish explorer and filmmaker Thor F. Jensen set out to complete the world’s first circumnavigation of New Guinea in a traditional sailing canoe, he wanted adventure. And that’s exactly what he got. Travelling 6,300 km through treacherous seas over 13 months and 21 days starting in 2016, Jensen braved the brutality of the ocean (and the fear of local pirates), made lifelong friends (in master sailors Sanakoli John, Justin John and Job Siyae), embraced Papua New Guinean culture (including receiving a traditional ‘spell’ for safe travels from an old man who had lost most of his teeth), and fell in love (with an Aussie anthropologist he met along the way). You will hold your breath from the very first chapter of Salt Water and Spear Tips; like Jensen did when he fell overboard at the start of the voyage after the canoe unexpectedly hit a wave and knocked his balance – drowning his iPhone and resulting in a stern lecture from his fellow sailors. “I was reassured to see the sailors didn’t want to lose the dim dim [white person] on the second day of the voyage,” Jensen writes, with his trademark sincerity and tongue-in-cheek humour. The adventurer tells his story with brutal honesty, capturing PNG in all its glory: the flaws and beauty. It’ll make you want to embrace your inner explorer and book a trip to PNG. Or, at least, watch the Shailene Woodley sailing drama Adrift from the comfort of your couch. Either way, adventure awaits.
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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
You will be a changed person after reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. The first novel to explore the experience of attempting to illegally cross the US-Mexico border, this page-turner is a timely look at the state of the world and the complex issue of immigration, but more than anything, it’s the story of a mother’s love. The protagonist Lydia flees a Mexican drug cartel with her eight-year-old son Luca and a machete strapped to her leg. The tagline is poignant and powerful: “Fear keeps them running. Hope keeps them alive.”
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Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists by Julia Ebner
It’s a sad and terrifying reality that extremism is all around us. No one knows this better than counter-extremist expert Julia Ebnber, who has spent years infiltrating tech-savvy extremist groups from jihadists to Christian fundamentalists, and white nationalists to radical misogynists. Her book, Going Dark, is a fascinating look at the darkest recesses of extremism – and what is being done to counter it.
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Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
Penned by the author behind the incredibly successful Crazy Rich Asians series, Sex and Vanity is a rollicking read that will catapult you into the glamorous lives of the international elite. Also set to become a movie, the book starts off on the stunning, sun-drenched island of Capri, where Lucie Churchill of New York meets the handsome George Zao of Hong Kong – whom she instantly can’t stand. She can’t stand him when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can’t stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does – and she really can’t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa. The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself, and vehemently denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, she finds herself drawn to him again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé and ultimately herself, as she tries to deny George entry into her world—and her heart.
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Topics Of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
Brimming with sex and self-hatred, Miranda Popkey’s sizzling debut novel unfolds across two captivating decades. Using dialogue to create moments of tension and trust as her unnamed narrator winds her way through life and the female experience. Each chapter presents a different time and place, a different life experience, and a different conversation, offering an almost thrillingly voyeuristic glimpse into the inner worlds of many on the subjects of self-sabotage, shame, love, infidelity and more.
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All Adults Here By Emma Straub
Astrid Strick has always tried to do her best for her three children. Now, they’re finally grown up – but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Elliott doesn’t have any idea who he really is, or how to communicate with his own sons. Porter is, at last, pregnant – but feels incapable of rising to the challenge. Nicky has fled to distant New Mexico, where he’s living the bohemian dream. And Astrid herself is up to things that would make her children’s hair curl… Until now, the family have managed to hide their true selves from each other. But when Nicky’s incorrigibly curious daughter Cecelia comes to stay, her arrival threatens to upturn everything. After all, when it comes to family: can you ever really keep a secret?
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What’s Left Of Me Is Yours by Stephanie Scott
Within the Tokyo underworld there is an industry that exists to break up marriages. It is known today as wakaresaseya — agents who, for a fee, can be hired by one spouse to seduce the other and provide grounds for divorce on favourable terms. But when Kaitaro Nakamura is hired to seduce Rina, something unexpected happens — he falls in love. Based on a real case, Rina moves in with him after the divorce, unaware of his role in the demise of her marriage. But the truth inevitably resurfaces… with tragic consequences.
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A Long Petal Of The Sea by Isabel Allende
A consummate storyteller at the height of her powers, in this latest novel Allende returns to her favourite theme: the resilience of the human spirit. Widely regarded as her finest book yet, it tells the story of Victor Dalmau, a young doctor that gets caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves his life – and the fate of his country – forever changed. Together with his sister-in-law, the pianist Roser Bruguera, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile. When opportunity to seek refuge in Chile arises, they take it, boarding a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to the promised ‘long petal of sea and wine and snow’ over the seas. There, they find themselves enmeshed in a rich web of characters who come together in love and tragedy over the course of four generations, destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world.
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