Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on, or the music we’re loving.

Rosalind McClintock is reading Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Each time I visited one of our shops a colleague would ask me if I'd read Trespasses. So, when it came to selecting my summer reading, Trespasses was on the top of my pile, and I am so glad it was. This is an exceptional debut novel. It is a story of intimacies and the minutiae of the day-to-day of ordinary life set against The Troubles. I fell in love with all the characters, as flawed as they were, and felt that I lived the months with them in that small suburb on the outskirts of Belfast.

If you love well written stories, richly drawn characters with a dash of historical context then this is the book for you. 

Lian Hingee is reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell's sublime memoir I Am, I Am, I Am was one of the most affecting books I've read for years, and I've been eager to read her most recent work of fiction since it was published in 2022. Set during the Italian Renaissance and based on true events, The Marriage Portrait tells the story of Lucrezia De Medici's doomed marriage to Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara. Given in marriage to the man her dead sister was expected to wed, headstrong Lucre chafes under the repressive rule of her mercurial new husband. With her survival and safety entirely reliant upon her ability to secure the Duke's reign by providing him with an heir, the sixteen-year-old Lucre tries to make a place for herself in a hostile court. But time is ticking, and the duke is becoming impatient ...

Gorgeously rendered, and complusively paced, this evocative work of historical fiction transports readers to the dangerous and volatile world of 16th century Europe, introducing them to a protagonist so vivid she seems to be standing over your shoulder.

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Aurelia Orr is reading Mothering by Ainslie Hogarth

I recently read Motherthing, and just wow. What a glorious, spine-chilling creation she was. Ainslie Hogarth explores the relationship between mothers and daughters (and in-laws too), and how the love of a mother – or the absence of it – can shape who we become as adults. The love of a mother, a daughter, or a wife, has never been drawn so potently, so evocatively ... or so dangerously, until Hogarth clawed it out from the shadows!