Books I Read in January 2025

The Watermark by Sam Mills is a truly wacky and audacious piece of metafiction which tells the story of celebrated reclusive author Augustus Fate who kidnaps Jaime and Rachel so he can trap them in his novel to give more depth to the characters. As they try to escape, they hop between different books and find themselves in Oxford in 1861, Manchester in 2014, Russia in 1928 and London in 2047. The pastiches of different genres are all well drawn as Jaime and Rachel fight against the characters created for them with their real selves. ‘The Watermark’ could easily have become overwhelmed by the sheer number of ideas bursting out of it, and some of them are inevitably more successful than others depending on your genre preferences (I personally struggled with the Russian section). However, the relationship between Jaime and Rachel hangs it all together, and Mills pulls off a dizzying narrative about the boundaries of fiction, reality and fate.

Confessions by Catherine Airey has been widely trailed as one of the debut novels to watch this year. In New York in 2001, 16-year-old Cora Brady’s mother has recently died by suicide and her father is missing after the 9/11 attacks when she is contacted by an estranged aunt living in Ireland inviting her to stay. The plot oscillates back and forth, following three generations of women in the family over several decades, with a particular focus on Cora’s mother Máire, aunt Róisin and daughter Lyca. There are lots of mirrorings and patterns throughout as the repercussions of various traumatic events gradually become clear. ‘Confessions’ is an assured debut which is sprawling in scope and melancholy in tone with a challenging structure. Many thanks to Penguin UK for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst is a true story about a British couple who survived on a raft in the Pacific Ocean for 118 days after their yacht was struck by a whale on their way to New Zealand in 1973. Drawing on Maralyn’s diaries and newspaper reports, the account of the events following the shipwreck is a real adventure story. When their food supplies run low, they survive by eating raw sea turtle and collecting rainwater. Just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse, their flares repeatedly fail whenever a ship comes into sight. As well as the challenges of their physical survival in such extreme circumstances, Elmhirst paints an intriguing psychological portrait of Maurice and Maralyn’s marriage, exploring the reasons why they wanted to escape suburban life in the first place, how they coped mentally with being adrift together in a dinghy for four months and what happened after the media interest died down following their rescue. This is a riveting story which deservedly won this year’s Nero Book Award for Non-Fiction.