Thrillers don't often feature in my reading, but Lisa Jewell's new book None of this is true sounded too good to miss. While celebrating her birthday at a local pub, the well known podcaster Alix Summers meets fellow diner Josie Fair; it's Josie's birthday, too, and as the two women chat they discover that they were born on exactly the same day and in the same hospital.
The 'birthday twins' bump into one another a few days later, and Josie suggests to Alix that she might be a good subject for a future podcast episode: she has an interesting backstory to tell and is about to make big changes in her life. Alix agrees to a trial interview and finds the whole experience unsettling but intriguing. As Josie divulges the secrets of her past - and present - Alix gets drawn into a dark web; the consequences will be devastating.
This will have you compulsively turning the pages as the grim truth of the women's situation is gradually revealed.
Now to Hannah Rothschild's first novel, a tightly-plotted romp that's fun and funny, but with a very serious side too. This is set in the art world and concerns a long-lost painting, the eponymous The Improbability of Love by Antoine Watteau. Formerly the property of royalty, the picture has been found in a London junk shop by impoverished chef Annie McDee. Her impulse purchase - it's a gift for a lover who then stands her up - takes her into the rarefied world of multi-millionaire collectors and experts who are not all that they seem.
Will Annie escape the troubles of her past and finally find her feet? Will the picture be authenticated and recover its starry status? Will terrible wrongs be righted? Suffice to say that it's a wild ride, but it's also a rich book, studded with scholarship worn lightly (the author is a former Chair of Trustees of the National Gallery), illuminating and hugely enjoyable. I loved it!
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