Ask yourself, how many really good books have you read in the last year? We don’t mean kinda-liked-it good, but brilliant-can’t-stop-thinking-about-it good. Exactly! And with so-called 'chick-lit' sales down 10% in the last year, it seems female authors are no longer being taken seriously.
We reckon that’s unfair – because so many brilliant novels are written by women. In our new campaign, we want you to seek a world outside books with pink covers...
So in our #readitandtweet guide to fab books written by women, Company staffers, and some other familiar faces, share the novels they've loved.
Even better, all of these books are available on the iBookstore too! Take a look at our April recommendations here, tweet @companymagazine your own recommendations using #readitandtweet and join our mission to let the world know about the amazing world of female fiction – it’s chick lit, but not as you know it!
Goodbye For Now by Laurie Frankel
A poignant, heart-warming novel of love, loss and the possibility of keeping the past alive in a wholly unexpected way for fans of ONE DAY, WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT and THE NOTEBOOK. Imagine a world in which you never have to say goodbye. A world in which you can talk to your loved ones after they've gone - About the trivial things you used to share. About the things you wish you'd said while you still had the chance. About how hard it is to adjust to life without them. When Sam Elling invents a computer programme that enables his girlfriend Meredith to do just this, nothing can prepare them for the success and the complications that follow. For every person who wants to say goodbye, there is someone else who can't let go. And when tragedy strikes, they have to find out whether goodbye has to be for ever. Or whether love can take on a life of its own...
Download Goodbye For Now on iBookstore here
The End Of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookshop, she can't believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the eccentric Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed. With Mr. Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself swept into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel.
Download The End Of Mr Y on iBookstore here
Taken by Jacqui Rose
Casey Edwards has demons to put to rest. Since she had to give away her baby at 15, she’s been lost in booze and bad company. But now she wants to find her child and put things right… Perfect for fans of Jessie Keane and Martina Cole ‘All she wanted to do was get out of there. Get on a train and head for London, the place she’d been avoiding for so many years. But it was finally time.’ Casey Edwards has demons to put to rest. Since she had to give away her baby at 15, she’s been lost in booze and bad company. But now she wants to find her child and put things right.
Heading to Soho, Casey meets former gangster Vince Sadler, an old-school hard man who can still handle himself – and anyone else. There’s a spark between Vince and Casey but she can’t let herself get hurt, not again. To find the truth, Casey must enter the dark world of London’s gangland: hard drugs, vice, even people trafficking. Soon she discovers that mob boss Alfie Jennings and sadistic psycho Oscar Hardings are plotting something dangerous, something brutal. Something that puts Casey – and her child – in serious trouble . . . Full of strong women, devious gangsters and compelling twists, Taken is compulsive read perfect for fans of Jessie Keane and Roberta Kray.
Download Taken on iBookstore here
Trafficked: My Story by Sophie Hayes
He’d been her friend for years. He said he loved her. Then she realised she didn’t know him at all… When everything seemed to be falling apart in Sophie’s life, she was thankful for her friend Kas, who was always at the end of a phone, ready to listen and to offer comfort and advice. Her father’s cold dislike of her and then her parents’ divorce had left her with a deep distrust of men. But, gradually, Kas made her believe there was at least one man who truly cared about her. But she was wrong. At first when Sophie went to stay for a few days with Kas in Italy, he was kind and caring, as he’d always been. But three days after she arrived, everything changed. His eyes were cold as he described the things he expected her to do ‘for love’. But soon Sophie’s bewilderment turned to fear as he punched and shouted at her and threatened to kill her adored younger brothers if she didn’t do exactly as she was told…to sell her body on the streets to pay off Kas’s debts. Terrified of Kas, the police and the men whose pleasures she was forced to satisfy, Sophie worked seven nights a week for the next six months on the dark and lonely streets of a town in northern Italy. Subjected regularly to Kas’s verbal, mental and physical abuse, she knew she would never escape. And then, one day, after she’d been admitted to hospital with stomach pains – and knowing that Kas would kill her if he found out – she dared to phone her mother. But who would reach her first?
Download Trafficked: My Story on iBookstore here
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But . . . They are brother and sister. Forbidden will take you on an extraordinary emotional journey. Passionate and shocking, this is a book you will remember long after you have put it down.
Download Forbidden on iBookstore here
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can. Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv’—the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children, in order to send them to concentration camps. Sarah's Key is the poignant story of two families, forever linked and haunted by one of the darkest days in France’s past. In this emotionally intense, page-turning novel, Tatiana de Rosnay reveals the guilt brought on by long-buried secrets and the damage that the truth can inflict when they finally come unravelled.
Download Sarah's Key on iBookstore here
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular bestseller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival. Through the story of three generations of women in her own family – the grandmother given to the warlord as a concubine, the Communist mother and the daughter herself – Jung Chang reveals the epic history of China's twentieth century. Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its descriptions, this is a masterpiece which is extraordinary in every way.
Download Wild Swans on iBookstore here
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, but her father's account of the event. Now fourteen, she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servant whose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the sixties is a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fighting for. When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act. Fugitives from justice and from Lily's harsh and unyielding father, they follow a trail left by the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother.
