Three new novels to read in March
Three new novels to read in March
From a forbidden, First World War love story to a spectacular literary thriller
After last month’s mini essay about reading slumps, I’m keeping it short and sweet today. There are a ton of great books out this month but the following three are my easy favourites. I hope you love them as much as I do.
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
It’s 1914 and schoolboys Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood are desperately in love with each other - but neither knows the other feels the same way. Soon they find themselves worlds away from their tranquil countryside boarding school and inside the trenches of the First World War, and it is here their forbidden romance begins to bloom.
In Memoriam is both brutal and beautiful; the kind of rich and atmospheric and devastating story that you spend days recovering from. Anyone who loved Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong or Ian McEwan’s Atonement as much as I did needs to read this book.
Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah
When you want fundamentally different things, is love alone enough to keep a marriage from crumbling? This is the question at the core of Rootless, which opens with Sam finding out his wife has boarded a plane to Ghana, leaving him and their daughter behind in London.
The book then retraces their relationship up to this point, which each chapter counting down the years, months and days to an event that we don’t know the significance of until the shell-shocking final pages. I can’t tell you how much I adored this novel.
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop
JB Blackwood is a novelist on the cusp of winning a major literary prize; her husband Patrick is an older film director who was once her professor. They are celebrating their anniversary on a cruise and it is the trip of a lifetime - until they are out on the deck while a storm hits, and Patrick falls off the ship. From here, the truth about their past unravels.
I don’t think I have ever read anything quite like this book: it is both a lyrical tale about marriage, creativity and power, and a visceral and tense psychological thriller. Please read The Anniversary so I can discuss it with more people.
And finally…
In case you’re looking for something else entirely, I wrote a much wider roundup of new books publishing this month. It includes mysteries, historical books, non-fiction and so much more. Happy reading!
Ooh Ty! I’m always looking for new ones.
Hello Anna! These all look fabulous, especially the one by Stephanie Bishop, which I'm keen to read. I read one of her previous books (The Other Side of the World) and it was excellent. In the book, a young mother and her family move to Perth, Western Australia, (where I come from) and she described the oppressive summer heat so well.