Discover our latest book of the month picks as we reveal what's inside our June Book Box.
This month we're reviewing Greener by Gráinne Murphy, Frontier by Grace Curtis and Lewis Carroll's timeless classic, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.
Local Voices: Greener by Gráinne Murphy
What's the craic?
As teenagers, Helen, Annie and Laura were inseparable, bonding over family, boys, and their dreams for the future. But when school ended, so did their friendship.
Twenty-five years later, a snowstorm forces the three women to spend time together, leaving them wondering if they can reconcile the gap between who they are and who they used to be.
Greener is an exploration of the changing dynamics of adult friendships and asks whether old friends can ever let us become new people.
Why we love it
There is something just so relatable about this book. Written by Cork author
We all remember those school-day friendships that you're convinced will last forever, but more often than not, they just don't. We grow up, move away, move on and sometimes lose touch all-together, divided by time, distance and circumstance.
This is a book that looks at what happens when you're reunited with those people who once knew you better than anyone else - do they still have that innate understanding of what makes you tick or is their whole idea of you just too rooted in the person you once were?
There are so many books out out there about the complexities of teenage friendship or about twenty-somethings bonding over shared life experiences, but not nearly enough that delve into the nature of friendship between older generations, men and women - and that's what makes this book truly special. It's intimate, raw and all-too-believable story and we just loved it.
Order June's Local Voices Book Box Here
Science Fiction & Fantasy: Frontier by Grace Curtis
What's the craic?
In the distant future, climate change has reduced Earth to a hard-scrabble wasteland.
Saints and sinners, lawmakers and sheriffs, gunslingers and horse thieves abound. Folk are as diverse and divided as they've ever been - except in their shared suspicions when a stranger comes to town. One night a ship falls from the sky, bringing the planet's first visitor in three hundred years.
She's armed, she's scared and she's looking for someone.
A heartfelt queer romance in a high noon standoff with Earth's uncertain future, full of love, loss, and laser guns.
Why we love it...
If you like Firefly or Becky Chambers, you're on the right track with this brilliant futuristic sci-fi western.
Set on a world reduced to wasteland and long abandoned by the bulk of humanity, a stranger falls to Earth. The world she finds herself in is a harsh, unforgiving one, populated by disconnected communities of tech-averse, deeply suspicious, worshippers of Gaia, who stayed behind during the evacuation of Earth.
The story unfolds through a series of short vignettes, often told through the eyes of those who encounter the stranger along her journey, so we're not even sure of her name, background or objective for much of the book.
This inventive, episodic style of story-telling builds a real sense of mystery and intrigue around the main character as her quest progresses, as well as adding colour and dimension to the post-apocalyptic world she's travelling through.
An atmospheric, fast-paced read, filled with both humour and heartbreak - you'll not want to put it down!
Order June's Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Box Here
Bucket List Books: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
What's the craic?
"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!"
"I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole...without the least idea what was to happen afterwards," wrote Lewis Carroll, describing how Alice was conjured up one 'golden afternoon' in 1862 to entertain his child-friend Alice Liddell.
His dream worlds of nonsensical Wonderland and the back-to-front Looking Glass kingdom depict order turned upside-down: a baby turns into a pig, time is abandoned at a disorderly tea-party and a chaotic game of chess makes a seven-year-old girl a Queen.
But amongst the anarchic humour and sparkling word play, puzzles and riddles, are poignant moments of nostalgia for lost childhood.
Why we love it...
“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
We're taking a lighter approach to this month's Bucket List Book recommendation, with Lewis Carroll's timeless classic fantasy.
First published in 1865 and much-loved by generations of readers since, it's a completely bonkers book, to be honest, famed for word-play, puns and verbal puzzles that make it the perfect fun summer read - definitely not just for children!
Unforgettable characters such as the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts are, thanks to countless adaptations, seeped into public consciousness.
It's quite likely to be that book which you think you must have read at some point (just because you know the story so well) but have never actually picked up - so pop the kettle on, plate up the jam tarts and settle yourself down for a magical and nonsensical adventure.
