Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
BOOK OF THE WEEK with Charlie Richards. The Secrets of Happiness, Lucy Diamond, ISBN 978-1447299172 (Pan) BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
The Secrets of Happiness is an extraordinary tale of sisterhood, from Lucy Diamond author of The Beach Cafe.
The best things in life . . . can be just around the corner. Rachel and Becca aren’t real sisters, or so they say. They are stepsisters, living far apart, with little in common. Rachel is the successful one, happily married with three children and a big house, plus an impressive career. Artistic Becca, meanwhile, lurches from one dead-end job to another, shares a titchy flat, and has given up on love.
The two of them have lost touch, but when Rachel doesn’t come home one night, Becca is called in to help.
Once there, she quickly realises that her stepsister’s life is not so perfect after all. Rachel’s handsome husband has moved out, her children are rebelling and her glamorous career has taken a nosedive. Worst of all, nobody seems to have a clue where she might be.
As Becca begins to untangle Rachel’s secrets, she is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about her own life, and the future seems uncertain. But sometimes happiness can be found in the most unexpected places.
READ IT NOW IN PAPERBACK
End of Watch, Stephen King, ISBN 978-1473634008 (Hodder)
BD11.300 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
The cell rings twice, and then his old partner in his ear ... “I’m at the scene of what appears to be a murder-suicide. I’d like you to come and take a look. Bring your sidekick with you, if she’s available.”
Retired Detective Bill Hodges now runs a two-person firm called Finders Keepers with his partner Holly Gibney. They met in the wake of the ‘Mercedes Massacre’ when a queue of people was run down by the diabolical killer Brady Hartsfield.
Brady is now confined to Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, in an unresponsive state. But all is not what it seems. The evidence suggests that Brady is somehow awake and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.
When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend, Jerome Robinson, and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.
The clock is ticking in unexpected ways.
Both a stand-alone novel of heart-pounding suspense and a sublimely terrifying final episode in the Hodges trilogy, End of Watch takes the series into a powerful new dimension.
The extract above is abridged from End of Watch.
My favourite read of the week
A Few of the Girls, Maeve Binchy, ISBN 978-1409161448 (Orion) BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
‘The Irish do love telling stories, and we are suspicious of people who don’t have long, complicated conversations. There used to be a rule in etiquette books that you should invite four talkers and four listeners to a dinner party. That doesn’t work in Ireland, because nobody knows four listeners’ - Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy’s bestselling novels not only tell wonderful stories, they also give an insight in to how Ireland has changed over the decades, and how people remain the same - they still fall in love, sometimes unsuitably, they still have hopes and dreams, they have deep, long-standing friendships and some that fall apart.
From her earliest writing to her most recent, Maeve’s work has included wonderfully nostalgic pieces and also sharp, often witty writing which is insightful and topical.
But at the heart of all Maeve’s fiction are the people and their relationships with each other. A Few of the Girls is a glorious collection of the very best of her writing, full of the warmth, charm and humour that has always been essentially Maeve.
