As you may or may not know, this year I started a girls-only book club called Ladies Lit Squad. Since founding LLS in the summer, we’ve had three amazing meetings at The Hoxton Hotel, with sponsors like Urban Decay, Penguin Books and Pukka Herbs and we’ve read a lot of books. Follow LLS on Instagram to read along with us. Oh, and here are just three of the amazing books I’ve read recently that I think you should too… after all it’s hibernation season now. The ideal time to snuggle up with a good book.

Living The Dream by Lauren Berry

This was the book we read for our second Ladies Lit Squad book club and we were also lucky enough to have the author come and talk about the book. Living The Dream is a tongue in cheek title that will be a familiar refrain to those of us who headed to the bright lights of London for a career in fashion, media or, like the lead character in this novel, work in advertising. There’s a constant pressure in life, especially in London, to have it all. And this book is about not quite getting there. A great read for twenty-somethings who don’t have it all figured out yet.

Buy it HERE

 

The Upstairs Room by Kate Murray-Browne

Ladies Lit Squad read this for our third meeting and this modern-day ghost tale really resonated with the group. It’s the tale of Richard, Eleanor and their two children and Zoe, their ‘mercurial’ 27-year-old lodger. The couple buy a bargain house in London Fields, only to find that it may very well be haunted. This isn’t really a ghost story – it’s more about the relationships between the characters, who are all multi-layered and well rounded. I read this in a day, it’s fast-paced and perfect for a cold Sunday indoors.

Buy it HERE

 

Lullaby by Leila Slimani

Another spooky book which opens with the ominous lines “The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds.”. That’s enough to whet your whistle, right? When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. And they find her… or so they think. This voyeuristic peek into the domestic arrangements of a French family is truly chilling, but you’ll have to wait until next year to read it. Or if you’re a Ladies Lit Squad member you got a copy at our last meeting.

Released January 2018