Phantom Limb by Chris Kohler
Gillis is a minister, but he doesn’t believe in God. He’s mainly there for the free house, car and drinks he’s plied with at the wakes that happen on an almost daily basis in the small Scottish fishing town he’s found himself back in.
Down on his luck and out of the running game after a bad knee injury (from kicking an English guy in the arse), he ekes out a perfectly mediocre life. That is until one night changes everything. After one too many free pints, he stumbles upon a severed hand scuttling around, that, upon discovery, turns to point directly at him. Is this finally Gillis’ moment of glory where the mistakes of his past, his failed sporting career and pathetic love life, will finally turn around?
Gillis’s sections are interspersed with the story of an apprentice painter on an important journey during the bloody Scottish reformation, which cleverly echoes Gillis’ story to prove history, due to the egocentrism of man, is always fated to repeat itself.
It’s a surreal, funny, holy relic of a novel that reckons with the creation myths of Scotland, the emptiness of modern existence and the inherent need for humans to matter. – Soffi
The Unwilding by Marina Kemp
Fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday home of famed novelist Don Travers – but, as the week unfolds, she finds that it isn’t Don but his four enigmatic children, and unknowable wife, Lydia, who capture her attention.
Years later, Don’s youngest, Nemony, strikes up a chance friendship with Zoe. Reliving her unconventional childhood, Nemony reckons with the casual damage inflicted by her father. But as her relationship with Zoe deepens, Nemony is soon forced to question the true extent of Zoe’s fascination with the Travers family…
Moving from sun-drenched Sicily, to the artistic elite in London, to the old mining towns of Appalachia, The Unwilding is an atmospheric, immersive study of grief, motherhood, power, family, art, and the question of who has the right to tell a story. I couldn’t put it down! – Liv