Spencer's List

By Lissa Evans,

Book cover of Spencer's List

Book description

Spencer, Fran and Iris have something in common: the feeling that life is passing them by. Spencer's lost his lover, who bequeathed him a list of things to do; Fran shares a run-down house with her oddball brother; whilst Iris spends her time cleaning up after her two teenage sons...…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Spencer's List as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A confession: Lissa Evans is one of my very favourite authors. I’ve greatly enjoyed all her books, and this one is a brilliant example. It’s crammed full of likeable and fallible characters–as well as some equally believable horrors–attempting to deal with the ridiculousness of life. 

Reading it, I felt I was never far away from a good laugh, either a chuckle-worthy turn of phrase or a riotous set piece. Yet, along with escaped city pigs, procreating giant snails, and porno-mag chomping tortoises, I loved that there is poignancy and even tragedy. So much so I found myself late at night…

The Midnight Man

By Julie Anderson,

Book cover of The Midnight Man

Julie Anderson Author Of The Midnight Man

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I write historical crime fiction, and my latest novel is set in a hospital, a real place, now closed. The South London Hospital for Women and Children (1912–1985) was set up by pioneering suffragists and women surgeons Maud Chadburn and Eleanor Davies-Colley (the first woman admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons) and I recreate the now almost-forgotten hospital in my book. Events take place in 1946 when wartime trauma still impacts upon a society exhausted by conflict, and my book choices also reflect this.

Julie's book list on evocative stories set in a hospital

What is my book about?

A historical thriller set in south London just after World War II, as Britain returns to civilian life and the men return home from the fight, causing the women to leave their wartime roles. The South London Hospital for Women and Children is a hospital, (based on a real place) run by women for women and must make adjustments of its own. As austerity bites, the coldest Winter then on record makes life grim. Then a young nurse goes missing.

Days later, her body is found behind a locked door, and two women from the hospital, unimpressed by the police…

The Midnight Man

By Julie Anderson,

What is this book about?

BEWARE THE DARKNESS BENEATH

Winter 1946

One cold dark night, as a devastated London shivers through the transition to post-war life, a young nurse goes missing from the South London Hospital for Women & Children. Her body is discovered hours later behind a locked door.

Two women from the hospital join forces to investigate the case. Determined not to return to the futures laid out for them before the war, the unlikely sleuths must face their own demons and dilemmas as they pursue - The Midnight Man.

‘A mystery that evokes the period – and a recovering London – in…


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