This week the Mirror Book Club’s team of reviewers focus on an a disturbing insider account of the NHS during the pandemic, written with all the rawness of someone still working in the eye of the storm.
Also this week, it’s not all doom and gloom as a wholesome novel leaves the reviewer feeling that the world is a good place to be. It will bring welcome cheer to a grey January.
The pressures on modern marriages are captured in a thoroughly satisfying read.
While a well-paced, funny and romantic novel will leave the reader longing for the characters to find happiness.
Read on to find out what we thought of this week’s best reads – and don’t forget to join the Mirror Book Club – see below .
Breathtaking: Inside The NHS In A Time Of Pandemic, by Rachel Clarke
Little, Brown, £16.99
Although it is almost too gruelling a read as we sit out the third lockdown, Breathtaking is a scorching corrective to any suggestion that the pandemic is a hoax and that empty hospital corridors imply deserted intensive care units.
A palliative care specialist, Rachel Clarke has previously written unflinchingly about her own father’s diagnosis of terminal cancer in her tender, award-winning account Dear Life.
She may well be up for another award for this. It opens with the stark contrast between a bright spring morning outside and the grim reality of a Covid ward. One medical team with “bone-deep exhaustion” hands over to another the responsibility for wielding “a God-like authority”, for every decision has potentially fatal implications.
Clarke is sharply critical of the UK government’s gung-ho approach that allowed the situation to spiral out of control in early March, making her “almost deranged with impatience”.
“Oomph and bravado” were not adequate in the face of a minuscule and “supremely indifferent” organism, and she scorns Johnson’s claim that we shall “send coronavirus packing in this country” as though it were some unwanted door-to-door salesman.
She writes with burning anger about PPE shortages in hospitals, hospices and care homes for the most vulnerable, the failure of the testing system in the UK, and the Government’s continued prevarication with figures.
Clarke has earned the right to her contempt, dividing her time between her calmer, if often heart-rending, work in a rural Oxfordshire hospice and serving in a hospital on the Covid front line, defumigating after each shift.
She pays tribute to the bravery and selflessness of patients and their relatives, and the almost superhuman commitment of medical professionals.
Her own nine-year-old daughter is traumatised by knowing the dangers Clarke faces daily.
A former television journalist, she recognises the power of individual stories, and they’re threaded through Clarke’s vituperations, bringing home to the reader the remorseless violence of Covid and the anguish of families divided from dying loved ones.
Written at pace as “a kind of nocturnal therapy” on sleepless nights, Clarke’s book has all the rawness of someone still working in the eye of the storm.
It will, as she concludes, take “a judge’s cool eye” in the future to understand why the UK’s mortality rate has been world-beating.
Review by Vanessa Berridge
Rescue Me, by Sarra Manning
Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99
Former City high-flier Will works for his family’s floristry business and, in search of canine companionship, he visits the local dogs’ home at the same time as exuberant fashion designer Margot. They both fall for terrified rescue pup Blossom and reluctantly agree to “co-pawrent”, as Margot terms it.
But they have distinctly different approaches to looking after a dog.
Margot wants to smother Blossom with affection whereas Will is perpetually quoting from manuals. If Blossom wasn’t an animal, you’d suspect her of exploiting these differences to bring the pair closer together.
Just when it seems inevitable that the pair will fall in love, baggage from the past throws them a curveball.
However, this wholesome novel left me feeling that the world is a good place to be and it will bring welcome cheer to a grey January.
I Give It A Year, by Helen Whitaker
Trapeze, £8.99
On New Year’s Eve, Iris is shocked to discover that her husband Adam has been having an affair. So her new year’s resolution is to “give it a year” to see if the couple’s marriage can be salvaged.
However, after a few sessions of counselling, Iris realises that she too has to take some responsibility for the broken marriage.
What’s more, she recently lost her beloved mother and her father suffers from dementia. Her job as a fundraiser for the National Trust is jeopardised by time spent caring for him.
Movingly, she also discovers that her parents’ marriage wasn’t entirely what it seemed.
Then, through her job courting wealthy donors, she meets gorgeous multi-millionaire Lucas Caulfield. Could she live with the hypocrisy if she succumbed to temptation? And when the year is up, will Iris declare her marriage is over or won’t she?
Helen Whitaker captures the pressures on modern marriages and ends with a surprising conclusion in a thoroughly satisfying read.
And Now You’re Back, by Jill Mansell
Headline Review, £14.99
One snowy night in Venice, teenagers Didi and Shay fall in love. But the path of true love rarely runs smooth and they break up months later.
Thirteen years later, they encounter one another again. Will their love be nothing more than a memory?
Despite coming from the wrong side of the tracks, Shay Watson has flourished. He created a dating app and sold it for a fortune but has returned from his home in Australia to care for his terminally ill father, notorious rogue Red.
Didi is now running her parents’ hotel, where Shay is staying. Despite being engaged to Aaron, Didi realises that her first love never burnt itself out, it only hibernated.
Then Shay embarks upon a relationship with fellow hotel guest and megastar Caz. And Didi has lingering doubts about whether Shay can be trusted.
When they were together, Shay was blamed for a burglary at the hotel, and after Didi failed to defend him, he left for Australia. For Didi, the question remains – did Shay play a part in the robbery?
The theme of love runs through the novel, from Didi’s best friend Layla finding new love to the enduring love between Shay’s parents. The reader will long for Didi and Shay to find the same happiness in this well-paced, funny and romantic novel.
Reviews by Lucky Helliker
Join the Mirror Book Club
Join us in reading the current Mirror Book Club book of the month, Long Bright River by Liz Moore.
A mystery set against a backdrop of the US opioid crisis, police officer Mickey Fitzpatrick searches for her missing sister Kacey, a sex worker with a drug addiction, while a killer preys on street women in Philadelphia. Mickey becomes obsessed with finding the killer before Kacey becomes the next victim.