Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers or visit Bookshop.org UK to see the full list, and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Jo Leevers

I think Jo and I met first when I was teaching on an Arvon creative writing week and she was working on her debut novel. She was of course already a writer and set on a course for success with her fiction too. I’m so delighted that her work is getting recognised and read. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Jo Leevers has a background in journalism. She was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award in 2020 and her debut novel Tell Me How This Ends was published in 2023. It went on to be a BBC Radio 2 Book Pick and a bestseller and her latest novel, The Last Time I Saw You, is out now. You can find her on Instagram and X (Twitter).

Here are Jo’s recommendations:

Grown Ups by Marie Aubert

This was one of the first books I read as a proof on Netgalley back in 2021 and was surprised not to see more rave reviews when it came out. Aubert is Norwegian and this novella is set over a long weekend in a lakeside cabin, where Ida, an architect, and her sister Marthe (plus husband and stepdaughter) arrive to celebrate their mother’s 65th birthday. Ida is 40, single and thinking of freezing her eggs. But mostly she’s thinking about Marthe and all the reasons why her sister irritates her. Early on, she slides with ease into the well-worn groove of sisterly rivalry: ‘My jaw is stiff, she looks so stupid… standing there like that, I can’t even look at her’. Marriages are also picked over and stripped back to the bones. Marthe and her husband Kristoffer are observed speaking words that ‘sound rehearsed’ or chattering inanely to Kristoffer’s daughter, as if ‘talking to a dog’. Meanwhile, Ida is bruised from her latest failed Tinder date, when she was bored stiff yet still came away longing for him to call. Watching Ida realise how she’s made a lifelong career of self-sabotage is heart-breaking, yet there are also painfully funny moments.

The Home Corner by Ruth Thomas

I discovered Ruth Thomas via the Radio 4 adaptation of the brilliantly titled The Snow and The Works On the Northern Line, and then read this earlier novel, which exudes a similar quiet desperation. It concerns 19-year-old Luisa, who has failed her Scottish Highers due to ‘circumstances’. So instead of expanding her horizons at university, she finds her life shrinking as she’s remains living at home and taking a job as a primary school teaching assistant.

I’m a sucker for characters trapped in stultifying situations and the ennui of Luisa’s school staff room is a delight. But every scene of this book is taut with pent up emotions and sad, unspoken words. Thomas writes with restraint and wit and when the school children speak truisms (as children are wont to do), it happens without a shred of whimsy. Because this school is a cute-free zone; even when a magician’s white rabbit makes an appearance, it is eerily compliant, barely twitching ‘white whiskers stiff as nylon’. Luisa has been crushed by the things that can all too easily devastate one’s teens – a first love gone wrong and a rubbish best friend – but we’re rooting for her (and the rabbit) to wriggle free.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

Ok, so I’ve cheated a bit here. This book isn’t exactly undiscovered (especially given that Claire Messud’s latest book has been longlisted for The Booker Prize), but I do wonder if uninitiated readers might skim over this one at first glance because of its title. The Woman Upstairs might sound like a fast-read thriller about a creepy neighbour, but it’s nothing of the sort. And while Messud excels at creating a deeply discomforting world, she does so in unexpected ways.

Nora is in her forties and she’s burning up with fury. She explains the book’s title: ‘We’re always upstairs … We’re the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway, whose trash is always tidy, who smiles brightly in the stairwell… and not a soul registers that we’re furious.’

Somehow, she’s ended up working as an unappreciated teacher (apologies to teachers for the theme here…) rather than fulfilling her dream of becoming an artist. And then a young boy, Reza, joins her class, and he, his mother, Sirena, who has made it as an artist, and his academic father Skandar become the focus of Nora’s world. Gradually, she is drawn into a set-up that has a truly shocking dénouement.

---

I’ve read and loved The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud – who cares if Jo is cheating! – it still deserves more readers. And I have This Strange Eventful History, her latest, which as Jo says was longlisted for the Booker Prize on my to-read-shelf. Have you read any Messud, or indeed any of the others? If you’d like to be told about future Read This recommendations, you can follow me on Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter.

More Read This: Books Under the Radar

Lou Morrish author of Women of War
Francesca Ramsay author of Pinch Me
Sarah Leipciger author of Moon Road
Tim Chapman university librarian
Juliet West author of The Faithful
Lindsay Hunter author of Hot Springs Drive
Gina Chung author of Sea Change
Susmita Bhattacharya author of Table Manners
Vanessa Harbour author of Safe
Freya North author of The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne
Judith Heneghan author of Birdeye
Clare Mackintosh author of I Promise it won’t always Hurt like This
Barney Norris author of Undercurrent

Visit Bookshop.org UK to see the full list and to buy any of the books.