The team at Bellwoods always have a book on the go, and there have been so many great books released recently that we've been reading A LOT this Spring. Of course, it doesn't help that our neighbours are indie book store, The Bound.
Here are 4 of our favourite books that we think you will enjoy too. Don't forget to shop independent!
1. Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker
Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams - a safe husband, two adoring children, and a low-level online shopping addiction and a not-so-funny amount of credit card debt.
But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes hurtling into her new life. Soon she finds herself in a dangerous game with her worst experiences, and the people she thought she had outrun. This is a story about one woman's refusal to be defined by a past she would rather regret.
2. Jaded by Ela Lee
Jade isn’t even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.
Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend.
Until one night, something terrible happens after a work event, and she starts to wonder if she really wants to be the person she’s become.
She’s learned to laugh when she’s felt like crying, opted to be invisible when she wanted to speak up and changed her identity to please people. But now Jade has to make a decision for herself. The question is, which is the right one?
This searing novel explores the strength we find in female friendship, the hope that lights up the dark moments and recovery that’s far from linear, and will leave you asking yourself: what would you have done in Jade’s situation?
3. Birding by Rose Ruane
In the nineties, Lydia was one half of a teen pop group. Their image was sexy, edgy, girly yet ‘in control’. The reality was very different. Now, thirty years later, with #MeToo revelations a daily reality, a famous ex-lover resurfaces with a slick, self-serving apology, demanding forgiveness. Suddenly, Lydia is overwhelmed with memories of a harmful time in her life that refuses to leave her in peace.
Meanwhile, Joyce has never left home and the suffocating grip of her mother, Betty. For decades their lives have intertwined, even wearing matching dresses and make-up, as they follow a rigid daily routine. A single misstep can send Betty spiralling, so Joyce stays inside the tracks. But something unfamiliar is rising inside Joyce – a whispered what if . . .
Against the faded backdrop of a once-grand seaside resort, Lydia and Joyce are trapped in worlds of their own making. But as they both confront their pasts – the toxic men, the forgotten dreams, the twisted expectations – fate is about to throw them together, as they wrestle with the question: Can we ever truly take flight on broken wings?
4. A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue and courage.
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children – four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.
Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family…
Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honour, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
Let us know if you've read these books - we love nothing more than a chat about a book in our Whitley Bay shop - and we always love a recommendation too.