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Rest and recharge - Winter reading recommendations

August 26, 2020

Winter-reading

How does this sound for a chilly Saturday afternoon? You’ve spread a few drops of relaxing essential oil around the house, brewed a freshly spiced mulled wine, 

whipped up a dish of delicious comfort food, found the thickest, cosiest blanket you can, and curled up with a good book or your favourite TV show. Ahh, bliss.


The Alice Network is a riveting historical novel set across both WWI and WWII, while The Husband’s Secret is a tale of three women, thick with intrigue and scandal. The English Game is a historical miniseries that is delighting football fans and sport-agnostic viewers alike.

 

THE HUSBAND’S SECRET
By Liane Moriarty
Murder mystery, scandal, adultery, intrigue. The Husband’s Secret is a story of three women enmeshed in conflict. As the plot progresses, every detail of their lives is chronicled, from broken appliances to misunderstood comments. Oh, and murder.


At the core of this book is a letter being read before its time. “My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died…”. Read too soon, the letter uncovers a deep, dark secret with the potential to destroy not only the life built by Cecilia and her very much alive husband, but the lives of others. Rachel and Tess, entangled in their own dramas, are also about to experience the disastrous repercussions of Cecilia’s husband’s secret.


Enthralling and thought-provoking, Liane Moriarty has crafted a story that poses a clear question throughout. How well can we know our spouses – and to that end, ourselves?


THE ALICE NETWORK
By Kate Quinn

Lose yourself in history as you follow the paths of two vastly different women spanning both world wars. An enthralling historical novel from bestselling author Kate Quinn, the plot weaves between the interconnected stories of Charlie St. Clair and Eve Gardiner.


Unmarried college girl Charlie has been sent to Europe to ‘deal with’ her pregnancy. It’s 1947. Charlie grasps the opportunity to run off and search for her beloved cousin Rose who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war.

Desperate to fight the Germans, Eve is recruited by the real-life Alice Network of spies in France and trained by Alice Dubois herself. It’s 1915. Thirty-two years later, her path collides with Charlie’s. The two set off on a mission to uncover a truth, at any cost.

 

As Kate Quinn says of her portrayal of real-life heroine Alice Dubois, “The courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness of the woman christened the queen of spies needs no exaggeration to make for thrilling reading”.

 

THE ENGLISH GAME
Stream via Netflix | netflix.com
Written and executive produced by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, this six-part historical miniseries depicts the creation of the world’s most popular sport – football. Centring on the mill workers and aristocrats who battled it out in the 1879 FA Cup, it looks at how those involved in its creation reached across the class divide to establish the game.


Up until now, no working-class team has ever reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup. The Old Etonians have a stranglehold on the game and a belief that football was transformed from a hobby into a sport by gentlemen, for gentlemen. With the injection of a pair of accomplished Scottish players, the mill’s owner is optimistic about democratising the game.

 

Follow this enlightening journey as a working-class football star and his aristocratic counterpart transform football into the game we know and love.

 

Photo by Alice Hampson on Unsplash

 

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