Pile by the Bed reviews Burntcoat by Sarah Hall – a pandemic love story that also charts the life of its artist protagonist.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Stranding by Kate Sawyer, a debut that follows a couple making a life for themselves in a post-apocalyptic New Zealand.

Pile bv the Bed reviews The Beautiful Ones, a rerelease of Sylvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2017 telenovella-style romance with a touch of fantasy

Pile by the Bed reviews Desire Lines by Felicity Volk an Australian romance that spans the second half of the Twentieth Century

Pile by the Bed reviews A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes, a slightly magically realist romance of sorts that takes as its jumping off point Jamaican independence.

Pile by the Bed reviews a Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a gentle Japanese time travel tale set in a Tokyo cafe.

Pile by the Bed reviews Bodies of Men by Nigel Featherstone and finds it “resonant and thematically rich”.

Sarah Flannery Murphy’s debut novel is a difficult one to pigeon-hole. It is on its face a high concept speculative fiction that could almost be described as literary fantasy but with a dark, contemporary edge. But it also has shades of romance and thriller. Even the name of the book provides a number of ambiguous entries into the themes that Murphy explores. But first, the concept. In Murphy’s world there are people who are able to channel the souls of the deceased. By taking a particular drug and using certain triggers they can allow their bodies to be possessed by someone who has died. Eurydice, or Edie, is a ‘body’, working in an establishment known as Elysium, the only sanctioned game in town for people who wish to spend time with their departed loved ones. Edie is the longest serving of the bodies at Elysium, the work causing most to burn out. While there is nothing physical about the trade, the analogies with prostitution run strongly through the narrative. Two things happen to shake up Edie’s world. The first is a man who comes to spend time with his wife Sylvia who accidentally drowned while they were on a holiday….

Natasha Lester’s latest novel takes readers into the heart of Jazz Age New York. Despite the promise of the title, F Scott Fitzgerald does make an appearance even as a cameo, although a few historical figures appear or rate a mention. The reference to Fitzgerald in the title, dropped fairly heavy handedly at the beginning of the novel, is the idea of the more modern woman, unshackled from the Victorian mores that pervaded American society through the early twentieth century. Evie Lockhart, the protagonist takes this approach to life to heart. After being unable to save a woman in childbirth, she determines to become an obstetrician despite all of the pressures on her to not even apply, never mind succeed. Evie joins the Zeigfried Follies to fund her way through medical school, despite an undertaking to the school not to do anything to bring it into disrepute. At that time only one woman had graduated from medicine and was not celebrated for her achievement. Evie’s struggles to succeed against a disapproving establishment and its escalating attempts to remove her, coupled with her double life as a singer and dancer is one of the highlights of this novel. Lester has other…