Ellie Eaton’s — The Divines *****

Joe/Josephine is an insecure yet studious student at an English private girls boarding school. Skipper, her best friend until their second last year at the school, has moved on and become closer to the twins. To make matters worse, Joe has to share a room with Gerry, the skating champion no one likes. Joe befriends a townie, a connection frowned upon by the students, the Divines. But Joe continues the friendship and develops a crush on Stuart, her townie friend’s brother. Soon everything goes from bad to worse in an environment where girls from privileged homes, have an air of entitlement. They laugh at others behind their backs, tease relentlessly and bully unpopular Gerry.

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Naomi Alderman’s — The power *****

Roxy, the powerful, Margo, the politician, Tunde, the journalist and Allie, Mother Eve are the key characters who witness and are part of a new era exploding all over the world. Young girls develop a power that sends men rioting because they can’t accept they are now the weaker sex.

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Ana Johns’ — The woman in the white kimono *****

In the 1950s when U.S. servicemen were based in Japan, Naoko meets a navy officer and they soon fall in love. Naoko arranges for the sailor to meet her parents, but her family are set on her marrying Satoshi who is from a respectable Japanese family. Marrying a gaijin would bring shame on the household. Decades later, when Tori’s father is on his deathbed back in the U.S., he hands her a letter addressed to Naoko that mentions their daughter. This note, and stories her father told her in childhood from his time in Japan, send Tori on a journey to Japan in search of a sister.

Charlotte McConaghy’s — Migrations

Franny is a cleaner at a Galway university when she sneaks into one of Professor Niall Lynch’s lectures about birds. Birds are one of her passions, along with wandering and the sea. Not long after their next encounter, they marry, but Franny can’t stop wandering, and Niall is depressed by the destruction by humans who’ve caused most animals to become extinct. Franny is on a pilgrimage to follow the last remaining birds — the Arctic terns — from the northern hemisphere to Antarctica. She meets Captain Ennis who unwillingly allows her board his ship in Greenland. But Franny has demons — she sleepwalks, and memories of a life in Ireland haunt her. Will there be any terns left if she reaches Antarctica? And can she find solace from the secrets she keeps about her criminal past?