Book gems you might have missed

There are some books you love so much you can’t help but recommend them to everyone. Some of these are classics and bestsellers – no one is going to argue too much if you tell them it’s worth reading Pride and Prejudice or To Kill a Mockingbird. But there are other books you fall in love with that, for one reason or another, aren’t quite as famous as you’d like them to be. Here are some of mine:

Rob Sheffield – Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes. 

This trilogy of books about love and loss can be tough to find in the UK, but is worth seeking out. The story of how Sheffield married young only for his wife to suddenly die, it is by turns romantic, angry, heart-breaking and hopeful – a tale of love, and loss, and finding love again, all interspersed with fascinating and funny tales of pop stars from his work as a music journalist.

Katherine Dunn – Geek Love

Nothing to do with the modern use of the word ‘geek’, this is an American classic but far less well-known in this country, though it deserves to be. An ugly, brutal yet compelling look at love and family, it’s not for everyone, but if you let it grip you it won’t ever let go.

Madeline Miller – Song of Achilles 

OK, I am cheating here, as this was an award-winning best-seller when it came out, but if you missed it then, read it now. The story of Achilles and his boyhood friend turned lover Patroclus, it’s a glorious, sweeping romance set against the backdrop of the Trojan War that will stay with you long after you’ve finished.

Joe Keenan – Blue Heaven, Putting on the Ritz, My Lucky Star

Keenan was a writer on Frasier, and it shows in this slightly camp, very witty trio of comedies about hard up musicals writer Philip and his wayward friend Gilbert, who is constantly getting him into outlandish scrapes. Full of the kind of one-liners you’d expect from a seasoned comedy writer (Keenan also worked on Desperate Housewives, and the hapless Gilbert can’t help but bring to mind Will and Grace’s Jack) these are laugh out loud misadventures that made me sad he only wrote three of them.

Maria McCann – The Wilding 

This is one of those books that I enjoyed at the time – if ‘enjoy’ is the correct word, since it’s a dark book with some truly shocking moments – but kind of read about and forgot, only to find that it kept coming back to me, haunting me. Utterly compelling.

So, those are a few of my favourites – what about yours? 

by Tracey Sinclair (@ thrifygal)

Tracey Sinclair is an author and freelance editor and writer. Her books include the romcom The Bridesmaid Blues and the Dark Dates/Cassandra Bick series, the latest of which, Angel Falls, is out now.

This  post has been kindly written in support of #Rebeccas24HourReadathon. SomeOne Cares is a charity that helps support survivors, young and old, who have suffered of rape or some form of abuse at some point in their life. 

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