BOOK TALK: Spring releases to savour

Spring is on the horizon I say optimistically. It’s a great time for the spring releases of the latest books. So I am currently in a book frenzy, reading about five books at the same time but here is two I actually finished in the last week.
Emma Donoghue, whose writing I just love, has a new release on March 20 entitled ‘The Paris Express’, published by Macmillan. It is a total page-turner but only in the way Donoghue can do it, with a gripping plot set in Paris in 1895, based on a real event.
With the turn of the century approaching, many changes are happening in Europe. Industrialisation has brought people from rural villages to live in the cities, working in conditions hazardous to life and limb. Many themes surprisingly echo today of inequality and frustration with industrialisation and capitalism, benefiting the few.
The Paris Express captures it all within the wall of its carriages, starting in third class and working up to the first class. An anarchist boards the train with ideas of creating chaos into the mix of all the lives on the train that day. There’s a female medical student, members of the Government returning from their holiday homes to Paris. There is a young boy travelling on his own, an American artist, a pregnant woman just about to give birth, all aboard. And then there are the crew that run the trains, all the fascinating details of how a steam train ran. I loved it.
Next up, just published is ‘Disappoint Me’ by Nicola Dinan, published by Doubleday. This is Dinan’s second book after ‘Bellies’ which won numerous awards. It was on my list to read but never got to it so I was delighted to read this latest book. Her writing is fresh and engaging and in its own way a page turner, albeit it at a slower pace than ‘The Paris Express’. Max and Vincent are the main characters who meet after Max falls down the stairs at a New Year’s party. Max questions her life and where it is going after the fall. Vincent comes into her life with kindness and love taking her completely by surprise.
The story goes between two time frames, flipping back to their younger selves, helping us grow into their current day lives. I loved the characters in this book. Dinan did a great job of showing us who they are, where they want to go in life and how life’s disappointments have steered their lives and decisions they have made as a result. Other characters intersperse the various scenes and they are spot on. We love these too even if they visit us just briefly in the story. It’s funny at times and has some great lines of wisdom that catch the reader when they least expect it. One for the spring definitely.
There are many more new releases following this one, so watch this space.

Bríd Conroy and her husband, Neil Paul, run Tertulia bookshop at The Quay, Westport.