Gillian McAllister is a pretty cool cucumber. I first discovered her on instagram where she has a significant presence now, updating followers on both her daily writing life and the walks she takes with her dog Wendy in the countryside near her home. She talks openly and often about how she left her job as a lawyer to be a full-time writer and outlines in detail how hard she worked to make this a reality.

Unexpectedly one of my top reads of 2021, I requested this book on Netgalley because I’ve also been writing a novel about a young woman obsessed with dying and I was keen to compare and learn. Of course, because Everyone in this Room will Someday be Dead (let’s ‘shorten’ this to EITRWSBD) starts in such a well written and attention grabbing way I instantly lost the will to write my own novel.

I usually can’t wait to put together my reading wrap ups at the end of each month but for the last few months, around May onwards, I’ve had an absolutely terrible few months reading wise.

Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss is not a book that has arrived quietly. Although Mason herself says she wrote it pretty much in secret, it has been received with enthusiasm from reviewers and fellow authors to the extent that, despite a self-imposed book buying ban and a general dislike for heavier, more expensive hardbacks, I was desperate to read it.

When I picked The Surrogate on NetGalley I actually thought I was getting THIS novel that I’d seen doing the social media rounds, when in actuality I was getting THIS one.