Venus Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell

                                                             

Ebook:  377 pages                                                                         

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Lesbian, Art History,

Publisher:  Picador, July 2026, 

Source:  NetGalley

First Sentence: Mother, I write to you from another life.

Review Quote: A deeply felt debut -- Chloe Ashby, The Art Newspaper

My Opinion:

'Venus Vanishing' is the debut novel from Rebecca. As she is known for her work in feminist and unorthodox art history, it is no surprise that her inspiration came from these interests.

The characters Kurt and Elke Grese draw the young Jewish protagonist Hannah Sherman into their lives, without Hannah in her innocence realising that she was being used. Although the main characters are fictional the author has woven their stories into real life in pre WWII Berlin, when many peoples lives were ruined by the rise of the German Reich.

A fascinating read with an obviously well researched art element. The author's historical notes make this clear and they are well worth reading at the end of the novel.  Recommended to fans of historical fiction and art history.

With thanks to NetGalley, Picador and the author for the opportunity to read and review.

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Venus, Vanishing is the blisteringly passionate and page-turning debut novel from Rebecca Birrell, of desire, art, and the stories lost to the darkness of history – for readers of Sarah Waters, Yael van der Wouden, and Alice Winn.

Berlin, 1928. Hannah is new to the pleasures and freedoms of the city. An artist, a runaway, she is building a new life, loving without boundaries and sketching with a cutting edge.

But the party is ending. Hannah begins a recklessly consuming affair with a powerful man’s wife and it soon threatens to do more than ruin both of their reputations. People are disappearing. The shadows of something unspeakable are growing darker. Her art could be the thing that secures her survival – or will deny her any chance

Author Profile:

                                                   

                                                                                                                                         

                                                Photo and Bio Courtesy of  Goodreads

Rebecca Birrell grew up in Southport, and currently lives in Cambridge. She studied English Literature at UCL, followed by Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford. She has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum and at the Charleston Trust. In 2018 she undertook a fellowship at the Yale Centre for British Art. She recently completed her PhD at the Edinburgh College of Art. For the next year she will be Assistant Keeper of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Goodreads Author Profile.    Rebecca Birrell on Amazon

Land by Maggie O'Farrell

                                                                         

Hardback: 436 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, 

Publisher: Tinder Press, Headline Publishing Group 2026.

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentence:  His father was ever a man of few words.

Setting:  Ireland

Review Quote: 'Magnificent... a feat of the historical imagination' INDEPENDENT

My Opinion:  Wow! What a talented storyteller Maggie O'Farrell is. She writes beautifully descriptive literary prose with cleverly woven storylines that have never disappointed me in recent years, her writing just keeps getting better.

'Land' opens in 1865 with the west coast of Ireland suffering in the aftermath of a great famine. It is the story of the life of Tomas and his family when at this time he and his son Liam were working on the formidable Ordnance Survey project to map Ireland. As the family makes its way through the trials and tribulations of life in that era we the reader share their love and loss through stories of ancient times. These Irish folklore tales blend seamlessly with the struggles the family currently face.

Maggie O'Farrell has successfully taken this period of Irish history and turned it into a literary masterpiece of storytelling. Highly recommended to everyone.

Precis Courtesy of Goodreads:

'You will never understand how the land remembers, how deep the roots grow'

A spellbinding story of separation, longing, recovery and survival as a family makes a new home in the aftermath of tragedy.

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

Land is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.

Previous Reviews:    Hamnet.   Instructions for a Heatwave. The Hand That First Held Mine   The Distance Between Us  The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. 

The Marriage Portrait

Author Profile

                                           

                        Photo and Biography courtesy of Official Author Website

Maggie O’Farrell is one of the most loved writers in the English language. Her debut, AFTER YOU’D GONE, marked the start of a career which has established Maggie as one of the great storytellers of our times.

From that point onwards, Maggie has enjoyed critical acclaim and received numerous literary awards. THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. HAMNET, which imagined the untold story of Shakespeare’s son, won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and was Waterstones’ Book of the Year, and was also a no. 1 bestseller.  Her 2022 novel, THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize.

Maggie has recently co-written, with Chloé Zhao, the screenplay for HAMNET. The forthcoming film will star Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and will be directed by academy-award-winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). Hamnet has previously been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.Maggie is also the author of three books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO, THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK and WHEN THE STUTTER CAME TO STAY.

She was born in Coleraine in Northern Ireland and grew up in Wales and Scotland. Currently, she lives in Edinburgh.

Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads - Author Profile   Maggie O'Farrell - Facebook  Amazon Author Profile

Official Author Website.  Instagram Profile

Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes

                                                           

Ebook:  434 pages                                                                         

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Publisher:  June 2026, 

Source:  NetGalley

First Sentence: I have never been much interested in love.

Review Quote: ‘An impressive, involving novel' The Times

My Opinion:

Emily Howes is a new to me author and I will definitely be reading her debut novel published a couple of years ago at a later date. I was keen to read 'Mrs Dickens' having enjoyed over many years the writing of Charles Dickens. I thought it would be interesting to learn more, albeit fictional about his family life.

The novel centres on his relationship with his wife Catherine (Kate) and her long term servant Anne. Twenty two years of marriage and ten surviving children with Charles, a man that Catherine obviously loved dearly. However Charles was a volatile man who treated his wife both in private and public with abusive and cruel behaviour.

An emotional read that made me angry and sad. I learnt about a side of the author Charles Dickens and his behaviour that I did not much like. Recommended to those readers that find fact weaved into a fictional story a worthwhile read.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

 

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

In the early days of their marriage, Charles Dickens was infatuated with his pretty, sweet-natured new wife, Kate. But as he found fame as a novelist and their family rose through the ranks of Victorian society, he grew increasingly frustrated that real people could not be controlled as easily as his characters. 

Kate bears her husband ten children and travels the world by his side but the harder she tries to be a model wife the more she finds herself falling short. She seeks comfort and companionship in Anne Brown, the family's trusted servant, but whilst Anne comes to care deeply for Kate, her loyalties are tested to breaking point as the Dickens' marriage unravels.

Mrs Dickens reimagines the life of a complex, forgotten woman and tells the story of a decades-long marriage in all its tenderness, grief, romance and fury. Above all, it shows a woman silenced by more powerful voices until she finds the courage to use her own.

Author Profile:

                                                      

                                                Photo and Bio Courtesy of Amazon

Emily Howes was born in Essex in 1981. 

She has worked as a storyteller, theatre maker, writer, performer and director in stage, television and radio. In addition to writing fiction, she holds an MA in Existential Psychotherapy, and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. She lives with her two children, her two cats and her dog in East London.

THE PAINTER'S DAUGHTERS, her debut novel, won the 2021 Mslexia Novel Competition, judged by Hilary Mantel, Jo Unwin and Marianne Tatepo. It is the relatively unknown story of Peggy and Molly Gainsborough, and their mutual struggle with insanity. 

Her second novel, MRS DICKENS, is about Catherine, wife of Charles, who had ten children, climbed Vesuvius, and wrote a cookbook. 

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Amazon Profile.      Goodreads Profile

The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick

                                                

Paperback:  384 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Cornwall, Italy,

Publisher: HQ Sept 2025

Source:  Tywyn Public Library

Review Quote:  'Fascinating and complex… It’s beautifully researched and the life and landscape of the secret part of Cornwall around the Helford river gloriously evoked. What a pleasure to read!’ Rachel Hore

My Opinion:  

I have read quite a few of Liz Fenwick's novels and always find them to be an uplifting experience. 'The Secrets of Harbour House' is no exception to this as I was transported not only to Cornwall but also to my beloved Italy in this emotional dual timeline story.

The young female protagonist Kerensa returns to the family owned Auction house in Cornwall after the death of her father. When he died her father was working on cataloguing the contents of Harbour House and Kerensa soon finds herself immersed in the story behind a painting in the main hallway and how it is connected to the two women who last lived in the property.

Alternating between modern day Cornwall and Venice in the 1930's as fascism is taking hold on life in Italy. A mesmerising story with some deep hidden secrets to be discovered. Recommended to readers looking to immerse themselves in a captivating read.

Previous Reviews:  The Cornish House.  The Returning Tide   The River Between Us.   The Secret Shore

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

When Kerensa is sent by her father’s auction house to catalogue a neglected house overlooking the sea in Newlyn, Cornwall, it’s a welcome escape. Once the home of two female artists, Harbour House is a treasure trove, but one painting in particular catches Kerensa’s eye – a hypnotically sensual portrait of a beautiful young woman which dominates the hallway.

Captivated and intrigued, Kerensa finds herself piecing together the enigma of Bathsheba Kernow, a fiercely talented young artist who left St Ives almost a hundred years before, eager to escape a society that wouldn’t understand her, and her sweeping journey from the underbelly of Paris to the heady luxury of Venice, where a chance encounter would change her life for ever, drawing her into the most dangerous and forbidden of love affairs.

For Kerensa, still reeling with a grief of her own and facing an uncertain future in love, Harbour House will have secrets that will change her life too, and in ways she could never have imagined…

Author Profile:

                                      

Photo Courtesy of Goodreads 

Liz Fenwick was born in Massachusetts and after nine international moves - the final one lasting eight years in Dubai- she  now lives in Cornwall and London with her husband and two cats. She made her first trip to Cornwall in 1989, bought a home there seven years later. Apparently her heart is now forever in Cornwall, creating new stories.

Liz Fenwick describes herself as Novelist, wife, mother of three, slave to two cats and dreamer turned doer....

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Twitter - Liz Fenwick   Amazon Author Page  Official Author Website - Liz Fenwick 

Facebook Profile   Goodreads Author Profile