Category: fifties
+ depression, female friendship, fiction, fifties, gay, gothic, grief, journal, loss, love, marriage, mental health, mental illness, murder, obsession, psychiatrist, psychologist, review, secrets
The Night Counsellor by L K Pang
When silence dawns, only dusk will break it. In the shadowy corridors of The Beaumont, a mental hospital haunted by its dark history as an asylum, a disturbing mystery unfolds when in 1953, a woman is found mute, naked, and drenched in blood on the outskirts of West Yorkshire. With no memory of her past and no one to claim her, she is dubbed … Read More The Night Counsellor by L K Pang
+ audio book, feel-good, female friendship, fiction, fifties, friendship, gay, grief, List, loneliness, loss, love, marriage, motherhood, relationships, review, sixties
The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson
The list he left had just one item on it. Or, at least, it did at first… Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’. But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one … Read More The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson
+ coming-of-age, fifties, grief, loss, love, murder mystery, secrets, sixties
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the ‘Marsh Girl’ haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her. But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning … Read More Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
+ childhood, dementia, diary, family, fiction, fifties, friendship, grief, journal, memory, mystery, psychic, review, secrets
One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley
On a suburban street filled with secrets, 84 year old Edie Green must look back into the past to discover what happened to her friend Lucy, who went missing years before . . . A mystery she can’t remember. A friend she can’t forget. I kept your secret Lucy. I’ve kept it for more than sixty years . . . It is 1951, and at … Read More One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love … Read More Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
+ Catholic Church, crime fiction, family, female friendship, fiction, fifties, friendship, illegitimacy, Ireland, loss, love, motherhood, murder, police drama, rape, religion, review, serial killer, sisters, sixties, thriller
Blood Mothers by Gaye Maguire
Some debts can only be paid in blood. A rich socialite is found hacked to death in her Dublin home. It’s the beginning of a killing spree that leaves five apparently unconnected people brutally slain. Kate Hamilton, a brilliant and ambitious detective sergeant, is assigned to the case and soon uncovers the connection between the victims – they were all involved in an illegal adoption … Read More Blood Mothers by Gaye Maguire
+ family, feel-good, female friendship, fiction, fifties, forgiveness, friendship, grief, literature, loss, love, marriage, motherhood, museum, pandemic, relationships, review, World War Two
Dark Enough To See The Stars by Beth Duke
The long-awaited sequel to bestseller and book club favorite It All Comes Back To You has arrived! Violet Glenn. Everybody loved her. In 1946, that included her boyfriend’s best friend, Sam Davidson. Ronni Johnson wrote a book about Violet. It changed her life. Now she’s back working as a registered nurse at Fairfield Springs, loving her patients and her job. She doesn’t have another … Read More Dark Enough To See The Stars by Beth Duke
+ anthology, crime fiction, dark humour, Detective novel, fiction, fifties, jealousy, literature, murder, murder mystery, mystery, review, short stories, short story, sixties, thriller, writing
Vintage Crime by Martin Edwards (Editor)
Vintage Crimes is a CWA anthology with a difference, celebrating members’ work over the years. The book gathers stories from the mid-1950s until the twenty-first century by great names of the past, great names of the present together with a few hidden treasures by less familiar writers. The first CWA anthology, Butcher’s Dozen, appeared in 1956, and was co-edited by Julian Symons, Michael Gilbert, … Read More Vintage Crime by Martin Edwards (Editor)
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
“The differences between them – all those things she’d once found so infuriating – she now accepted. Being Enid’s friend meant there were always going to be surprises. However close they were it didn’t entitle her to Enid’s memories and neither did it allow her to be part of Enid’s life before they met. Being a friend meant accepting those unknowable things. It was … Read More Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
Bookchatter@Cookiebiscuit 