Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

“You have to take a chance don’t you? Its like crossing the road with your eyes shut…you don’t know what’s going to happen next.” –Kitty Finch.

Nina decides that standing near Kitty “was like being near a cork that had just popped out of a bottle.” Nina thinks Kitty is a wild, adventurous spirit.

Jurgen wants to marry Kitty; Madeleine Sheridan is afraid of Kitty and thinks she is “mad.” Joe thinks she’s depressed and a dangerous groupie.

Kitty, a botanist, is unlike any house guest he’s ever met. She has stopped taking her medication and sees people walking through walls. 

Kitty is also beautiful with a habit of walking around sans clothes.

Kitty’s poem, which she calls a conversation, is called “Swimming Home.” In it, she calls the pool a “coffin” so its easy to surmise her intentions. 

Joe who pretends he hasn’t read her poem does not want to accept consequences. He warns his daughter not to get in a car with her, but then, surprisingly, he takes Kitty out for drinks at the Negresco.

Maybe its her madness that make her vision clearer, like the fool in King Lear. She gives a spooky foreshadowing of events:

“I know what you’re thinking. Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better  and we’ll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all. That is why I’m here…I have come to France to save you from your thoughts.”

Nothing is as it appears in this novel about two couples vacationing in France. Everything rings true, however. The characters are well-developed and the scenes are well crafted.

This startling novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.  

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Like most of St. James’s novels, The Sun Down Motel invokes the supernatural. Strange events have been occurring at the Sun Down Motel since the eighties

Carly, who just lost her mother to cancer, decides to find answers to questions her family have been dodging for years–what really happened to her Aunt Viv.

The Sun Down Motel looks identical to photographs from the time Carly’s Aunt Viv worked the night shift there in the eighties.

The rumors prove true; Carly realizes the motel is haunted by several spirits. In the middle of the night, the lights go off and the locked doors open. While working at Sun Down she hears odd things and receives strange phone calls.

Fortunately, she has Callum and Nick, two locals who help her decipher Fell’s strange history. Less helpful are Alma Trent, a retired police officer, and Marnie, a freelance photographer. Both know what happened to Viv yet each refuses to disclose it.

In the novel’s alternate eighties timeline, Viv’s story unfolds. Like Carly, Viv has an intense drive and curiosity about murder. Viv solves the murder cases yet she naively puts herself in the murderer’s path.

What’s best about the novel is the way the two women (Viv and Carly) mirror each other. Both are courageous and fiercely determined to solve crimes. The surprising twist at the end will enthrall most readers. The closure Carly receives is well-deserved and earned.

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

Naomi’s earliest memory is of herself as a ten-year-old running naked in a strawberry field. She runs towards migrant workers who take her to a sheriff.

Twenty years later, Naomi is a thirty-year-old private investigator trying to find a child who has disappeared while out on a family trip. Naomi has become a private investigator to atone, as she puts it, to “atone” for her past. 

The child she seeks to save, however, has been lost for three years in a remote part of Willamette Valley. There’s no evidence to suggest that the child is alive. The case is inactive and its assumed she has perished in the snow. 

Naomi learns from each case and this case gives her most valuable insight yet. Glimmers of the past return as she finds the living conditions of the girl, a cave in a remote claim.

Denfeld, a former private investigator, writes a taut, psychological mystery with details that ring true.  

A harrowing work of psychological fiction set in Oregon’s Willamette Valley where fur trapping is still commonplace in remote towns. In one such town, a mysterious figure lives in obscurity. Years ago, he had been kidnapped and tortured by someone he calls simply “The Man.”

Could this be mysterious figure be tied to the missing girl?

As Naomi reaches out to her foster bother, some of her lost memories return. After solving the case of the missing girl, called the “Snow Girl,” Naomi vows to solve a more personal missing person case. 

The Butterfly Girl is the second novel in the Naomi Cottle series. 
https://renedenfeld.com/author/

Normal People by Sally Rooney

In this novel, two teenagers avoid each other at school yet are also fiercely, strangely attracted to one other. 

The two come from different worlds. Marianne has a much higher socioeconomic status than Connell. Her parents are barristers whereas Connell is raised by a single Mom. Connell’s mother is, in fact, a housekeeper for Marianne’s parents. 

Due to some quirk on her part, Marianne has a lower social status in school than he does. Connell is a popular football player while she is lonely and ostracized.

In spite of this, the two teenagers come together for secret trysts. Terrified, though, that anyone would find out about their affair, Connell treats Marianne coldly. He invites someone else to the Debs.

At Trinity University, the pair become friends and lovers once again. She is now more popular than he is yet they still struggle to communicate. Their relationship continues to be passionate, volatile, and heart-breaking.

After a misunderstanding, the two start seeing other people. Marianne, intelligent yet damaged psychologically by her family, seeks out boyfriends that are cruel to her. 

Connell feels Helen is a better choice until a funeral at his home town bring his illusions crashing down. 

This novel, which was long listed for a Man Booker prize, will soon become a 12-part half-hour drama on BBC3.