Second Life
By SJ Watson (Text)
After his huge success with debut novel Before I Go to Sleep, which was adapted into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, UK author SJ Watson follows up with another slick read about a woman in crisis who isn't sure who to trust. Julia Plummer was once a wild young thing but is now leading a vanilla life with her surgeon husband and Connor, the son of her wayward sister Kate, who they have been raising as their own. When Kate is murdered in an alleyway in Paris, Julia begins to learn more about who she really was and, in a bid to track her killer, enters her world, a louche one of virtual sex and casual encounters. Inevitably her relationship with a man she meets online progresses to something else. And inevitably things start spiralling out of her control. Too late Julia discovers she's risked more than she ever imagined. Watson saves his plot from predictability but only right at the end, with a twist I didn't see coming. This is a multi-layered thriller, suspenseful and filmic with a foray into Fifty Shades Of Grey-style sex. For me it went on a tad too long and, although I thought the finish brave, some will feel cheated by it.
Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook
By Rachel Khoo (Penguin Random House)
UK celebrity chef Rachel Khoo carries a notebook with her as she travels, cooks and eats to jot down inspiration and experiences. Since she's mixed-heritage and gets about a bit, her influences are wide ranging and the result is one of the quirkier food books around. I love how Khoo transforms humble ingredients into something special. Potato crisps become the foundation of a tapas dish with fried eggs and crumbled black pudding. Puffed rice gives fish a crunchy coating. Ribbons of courgette are turned into pasta. Rainbow chard (silverbeet) is used in a silky gratin. Asian mushrooms make macaroni cheese magnificent. There's even a dish inspired by a pot noodle. There are new discoveries to be made, including a Swedish staple called Smorgastarta I'd never heard of and lots of options for lighter dishes that make the most of vegetables. A lovely cookbook.
I'll Have What She's Having
By Rebecca Harrington (Hachette)
New York writer Rebecca Harrington spent more than a year dieting like a celebrity. She ate steak topped with peanut butter a la Elizabeth Taylor, drank two raw eggs whipped into warm milk like Marilyn Monroe, downed litres of Gwyneth Paltrow's green juice and Dolly Parton's cabbage soup and, for the most part, was very, very hungry. Harrington wrote about her celebrity dieting adventures in a series of columns for New York magazine and has now gathered them into a book that, while it is an exercise in total silliness, is also witty and fun. Harrington tortures her dinner guests with awful concoctions, loses weight then mysteriously regains it and loses it again, and shares all manner of food-related star trivia. It's as shallow as a puddle but if you're fascinated by Hollywood gossip and what other people eat, enjoy ironic writing and are in the market for some effortless entertainment I'll Have What She's Having is going to do the trick. Plus, it'll make you really happy not to be Victoria Beckham.
