My TBR list ('to be read' list for those who aren't obsessed with adding books to Goodreads) is always longer than I care to admit - and unless I read constantly from now until the day I die, I probably won't ever get through it. So plenty of books jostle for the top spot, and this year I'm going to choose a select few each month to get through as a way of actually keeping up with said list and not just adding new books to it and reading those instead.

Who am I kidding, I'll end up doing both.

I'm doing a few reading challenges this year, including setting myself a goal 0f 110 books in 2021, and doing The Book Club challenge, so I've got plenty to keep myself occupied. And I'm sure I've got my own novel to complete and publish, and a toddler somewhere to look after. 

Glutton for punishment, me? Never.

So, without further ado, here's what I have in mind for February - and don't forget to comment and tell me what you're going to be reading!

Why Mummy's Sloshed by Gill Simms

I just wanted them to stop wittering at me, eat vegetables without complaining, let me go to the loo in peace and learn to make a decent gin and tonic.

It genuinely never occurred to me when they were little that this would ever end – an eternity of Teletubbies and Duplo and In The Night Bastarding Garden and screaming, never an end in sight. But now there is. And despite the busybody old women who used to pop up whenever I was having a bad day and tell me I would miss these days when they were over, I don’t miss those days at all.

I have literally never stood wistfully in the supermarket and thought ‘Oh, how I wish someone was trailing behind me constantly whining ‘Mummy, can I have, Mummy can I have?’ while another precious moppet tries to climb out the trolley so they land on their head and we end up in A
Again.

Mummy has been a wife and mother for so long that she’s a little bit lost. And despite her best efforts, her precious moppets still don’t know the location of the laundry basket, the difference between being bored and being hungry, or that saying ‘I can’t find it Mummy’ is not the same as actually looking for it.

Amidst the chaos of A-Levels and driving tests, she’s doing her best to keep her family afloat, even if everybody is set on drifting off in different directions, and that one of those directions is to make yet another bloody snack. She’s feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated, and the only thing that Mummy knows for sure is that the bigger the kids, the bigger the drink. 

The Housewarming by S. E. Lynes

Everyone is going to the housewarming party.
All the same people who lived on the street the day Abi vanished…
Will her mother finally learn the truth?

Ava only left her daughter in the pushchair for five minutes. The buckle was fastened, and she was sure it was safe. But when she came downstairs, the door was open and Abi was gone – she walked down the road, past the Lovegoods’ house, and was never seen again.

A year later, the Lovegoods throw a housewarming party, showing off the results of their renovation. Ava doesn’t want to go. She can’t bear to look down that end of the road, to see the place where Abi vanished, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who don’t share her grief. Her husband Matt persuades her: he’s worried about her. A night out might do her good.

But as her friends and neighbours chat, and the drink and gossip flows, Ava learns something new about the day she has re-lived a thousand times. A throwaway comment which could change everything.

Ava thought she knew every last detail of that day.

She’s about to find out she was wrong…

The Disappearance of Emily Marr by Louise Candlish

A stunning story of secrets and scandal, identity and infidelity
 When Tabby Dewhurst arrives heartbroken and penniless on a picturesque, windswept island off the coast of France, her luck appears to change when she overhears a villager repeating aloud the access code to her front door. Hardly believing her own actions, Tabby waits for the woman to leave and then lets herself into the house. And so she enters the strange, hidden world of Emily Marr—or so her new friend introduces herself. Soon, however, Tabby forms suspicions about her new friend, suspicions that lead her back to England, and to revelations that will have explosive consequences for both of them. 

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.

Because of You by Dawn French

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock . . . midnight.

The old millennium turns into the new.

In the same hospital, two very different women give birth to two very similar daughters.

Hope leaves with a beautiful baby girl.

Anna leaves with empty arms.

Seventeen years later, the gods who keep watch over broken-hearted mothers wreak mighty revenge, and the truth starts rolling, terrible and deep, toward them all.

The power of mother-love will be tested to its limits.

Perhaps beyond . . . 

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She's on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband, but a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.

Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, where she helps ease the transition between life and death for patients in hospice.

But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a job she once studied for, but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened. And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made.

After the crash landing, the airline ensures the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation wherever they want to go. The obvious option for Dawn is to continue down the path she is on and go home to her family. The other is to return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways--the first known map of the afterlife.

As the story unfolds, Dawn's two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried beside them. Dawn must confront the questions she's never truly asked: What does a life well-lived look like? When we leave this earth, what do we leave behind? Do we make choices...or do our choices make us? And who would you be, if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are right now? 

Yes, you read that right. For a self-confessed bookworm, I didn't read a single parenting book for the first year of my daughter's life.

Sounds crazy, right? I read a lot of books while pregnant on how to deal with growing a baby and pushing it out, but my line of thinking sort of stopped at cutting the cord. I'd deal with the ensuing chaos later, and would accumulate a long reading list along the way. I envisioned myself flicking through book after book with helpful tips on bottle vs. breast, sleep training, sleep deprivation, how not to throttle your husband when all he did was breathe a little too loudly... you get the picture. I remember lying in a hospital bed, hardly able to move and with a sleeping baby snuggled on my chest, adding a few random books into my basket on Amazon but never getting around to pressing 'Checkout'. Which, in hindsight, is the best thing I could have done and here's why.

I didn't want any outside influences clouding my natural instincts as a parent.

For me, parenting has been intuitive and when the newborn fog cleared, I realised I didn't want any outside influences clouding my natural instincts as a parent. I will admit that I've had what most people consider an 'easy' baby. She fed well, she slept well, she rarely cried. So that was certainly a good baseline to start with, but I found I quickly fell into a rhythm with her, and that we had a strong connection from the moment our eyes met in the brightly-lit and, quite frankly, terrifying theatre at our local hospital. It was like we both told each other 'we got this' and, it turns out, we did. 

I found my parenting tribe.

I knew next to nothing about parenting styles while pregnant, and even less before the idea of children came to mind. When my daughter was a few months old, I curiously looked it up and found myself down a rabbit hole of information. Emerging, I had the Attachment Parent banner clasped firmly in my hand and a new network of parents to connect with. Parents who responded instantly to their baby rather than leaving them to cry, parents who didn't feel sleep training was for them, parents who contact-napped and co-slept, parents who devoted 100% of themselves to their baby and spent 99% of their time joined at the hip. I'd found my parenting tribe. 

Many of the big names in childcare have written guides and manuals of what to do in various situations, and for many parents these books are gospels - and that works for them. The last thing I want to be is a Judgy Mum (although we all fall to that trap from time-to-time, I'm sure). But the only thing I ever really sought guidance on was healthcare (I swear I had my health visitor on speed-dial at one point) and weaning, because it turns out feeding a baby isn't quite as easy as feeding the bottomless pit I call my husband, or the four-legged Hoover who loves nothing more than to sit by the high chair in hope. And usually, that help was sought from wise friends who have been there, done that. So yes, three weaning books are sitting snugly on my shelf. But aside from that, we've been winging it.

Now, she's thirteen months old and a toddler in every way possible. She moves faster than I thought any small human could and has the appetite of a hungry wolf. Suddenly, even though our connection is stronger than ever, there are potholes and pitfalls that I need some outside help with, and some large hurdles on the horizon (potty training - where do I even start?) so I've turned to my trusty books to help me out. 

I know by now how I want to parent, I know of authors who will resonate with me, so the books I seek out are in-line with how I parent my daughter and how we connect, rather than trying to shape that connection and that parenting style to fit with the way we 'should' be doing it as instructed in numerous mummy manuals. 

This approach certainly won't work for everyone - nor should it. We all parent differently, and some mums and dads prefer to do everything by the book from the word go. 

But for anyone wanting to trust their instincts, I definitely recommend trusting yours. Don't be afraid to seek help when you need it, but finding our own ways as parents and learning how to nurture our little ones without being given a list of 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts' is definitely something I'd encourage any mum to try. It certainly worked for us.

Now, onto the toddler years...

Confession time here. As a rule, I don't read books written by celebrities. 

I'm not really so sure why any more. It used to be some deep-rooted snobbery, thinking that actors and musicians and presenters surely couldn't be talented writers as well, and even though that line of thinking has bled away over the years, the general aversion to celebrity novelists has remained.

Then, last week, I watched Graham Norton talking about his latest novel on the Lorraine show, and I was instantly intrigued. The plot sounded great of course, but the passion with which he talked about it was what really sent me to the Kindle store and, from there, my little reading nook in the living room while the baby slept so I could devour it in peace. And devour it I did, in less than 48 hours. 

Another general rule of mine is that if a book ruins my mascara, it gets five stars. Whether of laughter, pain, solidarity or relief, if tears are shed then you've got me. I'm done. And this one certainly gets those five stars.

*

HOME STRETCH by Graham Norton

It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for the wedding of two of its young inhabitants. They're barely adults, not so long out of school and still part of the same set of friends they've grown up with. As the friends head home from the beach that last night before the wedding, there is a car accident. Three survive the crash but three are killed. And the reverberations are felt throughout the small town.

Connor, the young driver of the car, lives. But staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as living with the shame, and so he leaves the only place he knows for another life. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, by the noughties he has made a home - of sorts - for himself in New York. The city provides shelter and possibility for the displaced, somewhere Connor can forget his past and forge a new life.

But the secrets, the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind will not be silenced. And before long, Connor will have to meet his past.

*

This one hooks you from the get-go, and I love books like this. I have a huge TBR list, a one-year-old, and a novel of my own in the works - I don't have time to wait for a book to grip me. It's the first chapter, maybe the second, and if I'm not into it then I'm afraid it gets shelved. But Connor and Ellen were captivating and intricate from the very beginning.

What I truly loved about this book what it's simplicity. It doesn't try to dress anything up or throw in any gratuitous romance or drama scenes; everything progresses the story while building wonderful characters who you can't help but fall in love with. There were twists and turns that I didn't see coming, and I found joy in more pages than I can count. And the mascara was definitely ruined by some genuine tears. This is a beautiful, bittersweet family drama that sparks of realism and no doubt will speak to a great many people.

With this novel, Graham Norton has cemented his place as one of contemporary literature's great storytellers and is a serious writer to follow. I'm now going to read his other two novels and subscribe to his updates, because he's going to be one to watch, I'm sure.