Books to Look Out For in February 2025: Part One

Quite a few goodies to look out for in February’s publishing schedules, certainly enough to offer distraction from the grey gloom that usually prevails in my part of the world. I’ll begin with a gem I’ve already read.

Garrett Carr’s adult debut, The Boy From the Sea, continues the seemingly never-ending stream of brilliant Irish writing, opening in a small coastal town with the discovery of a child in a barrel lined with tinfoil in 1973. The boy’s taken in by the Bonnars whose two-year-old never gets over this intrusion, determinedly turning his back on his new baby brother. Carr knows how to spin a captivating story, peppering his narrative with wryly humorous observations, while exploring themes of family ties, community and financial hardship against the background of an industrialising fishing industry. Review shortly…

Elaine Garvey’s The Wardrobe Department follows Mairéad who works in a rundown West End theatre in the early 2000s, dodging groping hands and a bullying producer while learning her trade. She finds herself torn between building a new urban life and a nostalgia for her rural Irish home. ‘Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite, The Wardrobe Department is a story about reckoning with the past, finding the courage to change the present – and asking what comes next’ says the blurb whetting my appetite nicely.

Set over a single day in the 1980s after the death of a beloved teacher, Alice Chadwick’s Dark Like Under explores both the shock and grief of the tragedy and the rivalries, flirtations and arguments of everyday adolescent life which threaten to come to a head for three students. ‘Thrumming with life, this luminous debut captures the promise and risk of late adolescence and is a profound exploration of friendship, loneliness and grief’ promises the blurb. This one comes from Daunt’s publishing arm whose list I’ve learnt to keep an eye on.

Jessica Soffer’s This Is a Love Story is about a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background ticking three of my literary boxes. Jane and Abe met in 1967. She’d excelled in every artistic media she worked while Abe became a prize-winning author. Now, in their final days together, no chance of another remission from the cancer first diagnosed when their adult son was only five, Jane devotes what little energy she has left to recounting her memories of their past to Abe. I’d been expecting a straightforward continuous narrative but Soffer’s novel is largely made up of a string of episodic vignettes, short paragraphs of Jane’s memories narrated for us by Abe. It’s a style that takes some getting used to but it’s worth persevering. Review soon…

A new Anne Tyler is always something to celebrate and Three Days in June turned out to be a treat. It follows Gail whose daughter is about to be married, beginning on the wedding rehearsal day which has already started with bad news then her ex-husband turns up unexpectedly, complete with a foster cat, needing a place to stay followed shortly after by their daughter who promptly drops a bombshell. Tyler unfolds this short novel about marriage, love and relationships through Gail’s voice with characteristic insight, empathy and humour. The novella length suits her well. Review to follow…

As ever, a click on a title will take you to a more detailed synopsis for any that take you fancy.

That’s it from me for this week. I’m off London to catch-up with a few friends, take in a bit of culture and maybe visit a book shop or two.