February Newsletter

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Author Spotlight:

Nicci French

Nicci French is one of the world’s leading crime fiction writers and one of contemporary British fiction’s most famous double-acts. Nicci French is the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team Nicci Gerard and Sean French. Both journalists, the pair met when working at the New Statesman and married in Hackney in 1990. They have four grown up children and live in London and Suffolk.

Their first novel as Nicci French was The Memory Game (1997). Since then, they have collaborated on many standalone psychological thrillers, including The Safe House (1998), Secret Smile (2003), Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? (2024) and their latest The Last Days of Kira Mullan (2025) in store now. Nicci & Sean have also co written an 8 book Frieda Klein series beginning with the hit Blue Monday (2011).

Nicci Gerrard was born in June 1958 in rural Worcestershire. In the early eighties she taught English Literature in Sheffield, London and Los Angeles, but moved into publishing in 1985 with the launch of Women’s Review, a magazine for women on art, literature and female issues. In 1989 she became acting literary editor at the New Statesman, before moving to the Observer, where she was deputy literary editor for five years, and then a feature writer and executive editor. It was while she was at the New Statesman that she met Sean French.

Sean French was born in May 1959 in Bristol, to a British father and Swedish mother. In 1981 he won Vogue magazine’s Writing Talent Contest, and from 1981 to 1986 he was their theatre critic. During that time, he also worked at the Sunday Times as deputy literary editor and television critic and was the film critic for Marie Claire and deputy editor of New Society. Before collaborating with Nicci, Sean wrote several novels, including biographies of Patrick Hamilton (author of the plays, Gas Light and Rope) and Brigitte Bardot.

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

The Last Days of Kira Mullan

She thinks it was murder.
But if she can’t trust herself, can anyone else?

Nancy North and her boyfriend Felix are making the move across London to Harlesden. A new flat, a new area, a new start. Because while Nancy is fine now, she wasn’t fine before. But settling into the new flat and meeting the new neighbours isn’t helped by Felix’s hovering concern. She is all right. She is sticking to her breathing exercises and doctor-prescribed help.

So, when their new neighbour Kira Mullan is found dead by suicide, Felix is understandably worried about Nancy’s frame of mind. But Nancy saw Kira the day before she died and she didn’t strike her as someone who was suicidal – she was upset and angry, yes, but was she upset and angry enough to take her own life?

Nancy is the only one convinced that there’s more to Kira’s death than has been discovered. But all the police and the neighbours see is a vulnerable woman who isn’t sure of what she saw, and might even be imagining things . . .

Is Nancy imagining things, or are there more questions that should be asked about the last days of Kira Mullan?

 

In store now!

Books of the Month

FICTION

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

Review by Jacq

Governments, armies and individuals in war do unspeakable things. Truth is suppressed, families live in fear by association – life goes on but with such loss.
Generations are affected. This is a beautifully moving tale of connection; between Korean friends who both feel desperately disconnected, between a mother & daughter where one carries a pain & drive she hardly allows the other to glimpse. It is a story of connection to the elemental; to earth, water, animal & spirit, to light & shadow; within waking & dreams and it is a story of truth telling and the power of art to make visible and give voice.
An exquisitely written book with such a sensitive touch as to appear light. I truly loved it.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

 

Like a long winter’s dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history

Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalized following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.

Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon’s house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her.

There, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before.

We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination and above all an indictment against forgetting.

NON FICTION

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

Reviewed by Suzie

In reading Memorial Days you can see why Geraldine Brooks is one of Australia’s most revered authors. From the first page I was swept up in her story of grief, and if time had permitted I would have read it from start to end in one sitting. I like the alternating timelines between learning about the passing of her husband and then isolating herself three years later to give herself the opportunity to give into her grief. The writing is open, honest, raw and reflective.

 

Memorial Day by Geraldine Brooks

 

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toward peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse (2022)

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island’s pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony and mystery of life.

KIDS & YA

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

Reviewed by Tenniell

I had been looking forward to the release of Rain on the Rock by Jodi Toering and it certainly didn’t disappoint. A beautifully presented homage to the heart of our country and acknowledgement of the life that flourishes around this sacred space in the season of itjanu. Rain on the Rock is an expressive picture story book with a very helpful glossary of indigenous words, and outstanding textual illustrations by Valerie Brumby. A must read for all.

Rain on the Rock by Jodi Toering

 

Rising above the desert plain, Uluṟu stands,
ancient feet planted deep within the dry red earth.
For much of the year, Uluṟu bakes in the kuḻi.
But on rare days when rain-song beats,
waterfalls cascade down the rock,
creatures stir …
and Uluṟu and Kata Tjuṯa burst into life.

 

Rain on the Rock celebrates the impact of rain on Uluṟu and the Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Told using vivid imagery, and in harmony with Aṉangu’s connection to Country, Rain on the Rock depicts the unique beauty of one of Australia’s most iconic landscapes. Honouring Aṉangu’s connection to Country, this book is a stunning celebration of Uluṟu and Kata Tjuṯa.

January New Release Highlights

 

 

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Kids & YA

Book Club is Back!

After a very successful 2024 Book Club here at Farrells, we are thrilled to announce our line up for February, March & April 2025! For more information on titles and booking links, click below. But don’t hesitate, sessions are filling fast!

 

New to Book Club?

Click below to find out how a group of people, who were all looking for a way to read more, and get more out of their reading have celebrated 15 years of Book Club together! Kate Horton shares with us why her long standing Book Club is so successful and why she loves it so much!

Competitions

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

Gift of the Month

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox ISBN:9781761470431

Other Services