Little Women for the modern age in this week’s contemporary fiction: All Grown Up by
All Grown Up is available now from the Mail Bookshop
All Grown Up by Daisy Buchanan (Century £16.99, 384pp)
Inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, this is set near Manchester and imagines what the March sisters would be doing if they were young adults today.
Buchanan shines her spotlight on Louisa, their mother – previously known as Marmee.
Long divorced, drowning in debt and with her house on the market, the novel opens with Louisa looking forward to spending Christmas on her own.
Then daughter Meg arrives, blurting out she’s pregnant and has walked out on her husband. She’s followed by Amy, who’s dropped out of university, and Jo, who is fleeing her boyfriend.
The girls do not react well to their childhood home being sold and other much-loved characters appear. Brilliant.
Pool House is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Pool House by Mary H. K. Choi (Phoenix £20, 352pp)
Stevie and her mother Moon do not have the best relationship. Moon is an out-of-work actress whose star burned brightly, briefly, in the 1990s when people believed she had live sex while in a B-movie.
Moon appeared on a lot of red carpets and in magazines, often wearing few clothes. This meant Stevie grew up knowing most of her classmates and their fathers and grandfathers had seen her mother naked. Moon is also a recovering addict and her TV husband, the man she’s been having a long affair with, has recently died.
Moon is in turmoil and Stevie wants to leave Los Angeles. They move in to their glass pool house while they rent out their home to cover their outgoings.
When Adam, Moon’s TV son whom Stevie always fancied, arrives, things get even messier. Hilarious and clever.
If Books Could Kill is available now from the Mail Bookshop
If Books Could Kill by Kate Eberle (Michael Joseph £16.99, 384pp)
Roxie is single and determined to remain that way. She is also a love junkie who gets her fix from consuming non-stop romance novels and imagining herself with the heroes.
When Roxie makes a wish to star in the next novel by her favourite author she thinks no more of it. But then weird things start happening and it’s not long before Roxie realises she’s living a fictional life alongside her real one.
It soon becomes clear that Roxie’s favourite author has switched genres – to thrillers.
Roxie needs help and she finds it in the form of Grant, an awkward professor who reads a lot of crime. The more time they spend together, the closer they become. Great fun.