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The Reading Group
The Reading Group
Aug 12, 2025 6:43 PM

Author:Elizabeth Noble

The Reading Group

The Sunday Times Number One bestseller about five women and the reading group which intertwines their lives

A New Year. A New Page. A New Reading Group.

Five women meet for their first reading group, little realising this social gathering over books and glasses of wine might see them share more than literary debate ... and will, in fact, take each of them to places they'd never imagined.

Harriet and Nicole are the ringleaders, best friends who can't quite admit - to themselves or one other - they might be trapped in loveless marriages. While Polly, a determined single mum, finds herself tipped off course by an unexpected proposal. Susan, usually so carefree and happy, is forced to face a shattering reality and Clare, quiet and mysterious, plainly has more on her mind than next week's book choice.

Over the coming year their worlds will intertwine in delightful, unexpected and surprising ways. Stories will be re-written as dreams are made and broken, but through it all they'll have the Reading Group, with friendship, tears and laughter featuring in every chapter of their lives.

**Elizabeth Noble's gloriously uplifting new novel, Letters to Iris, is out now!**

Reviews

Witty, pacy and immediately engaging

—— Glamour

A compelling read, with characters you'll really take to your heart

—— Heat

Praise for Elizabeth Noble

—— -

A wonderfully well-written book, full of emotion

—— Daily Mail

Witty, affectionate and unashamedly tear-jerking

—— Red

Honest and beautifully written

—— Woman & Home

Tissues are essential. You'll ricochet between delicately watering eyes at the romance of it all and howling sobs at the unbearable tenderness

—— Heat

It would be a hard heart indeed that remained unmoved . . . the tender feelings that Noble engenders in her readers are to be cherished

—— Daily Express

So fluid, the pages turn themselves

—— Daily Mirror

Irresistible comfort read

—— Glamour

Noble is the mistress of the tearjerking message of love

—— Express

Ludo is a fascinatingly flawed narrator, and the language is alive with livid, unsettling imagery

—— Sunday Telegraph

James Scudamore again achieves something magical

—— Ben East , The Guardian

Slinkily assured... a steamlined fantasy summons up a teeming citadel where the wealthy take to their helicopters "like fat flies", leaving migrant workers to swarm below

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

There is so much... brilliantly at work in James Scudamore's Heliopolis that it seems arbitrary to praise one element over another

—— Megan L McCarthy , The Irish Times

Sinister, shocking and extremely powerful

—— Woman & Home

Wonderful

—— Red

Her writing is always thrilling and this is much more than simply a page-turner

—— Jane Wheatley , The Times

A successful novel, well made and written with a light touch

—— Alex Clark , The Guardian

It is beautifully written, and elegantly edited, and manages to pack in vivid characterisations built on tragic family histories... With its strong structure and interesting themes, it could be a textbook example of how to write a modern novel

—— Third Way

Satisfying death-blow to place-in-the-sun escapism

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent Summer Reads

A compelling novel

—— Tatler

A wry family black comedy, a study in revenge, and an unlikely, if sinister, thriller...a characteristically intelligent, well constructed narrative... The prose is precise and fluent, the tone is neutral, and Tremain makes effective use of the fact that many adults remain children

—— Eileen Battersby , The Irish Times

A criss-crossing, sinuous tale of muted passion and sibling rivarly - and affection - set in the Cevennes. Its peculiar, particular atmosphere is conjured perfectly

—— Erica Wagner , The Times, Christmas round up

A haunting and perfectly poised tale of incest and antiques.

—— Frances Wilson , Daily Telegraph, Christmas round up

Creepily affecting

—— Katy Guest , Independent on Sunday, Christmas round up

Chilling and vivid

—— Charlotte Vowden , Daily Express

Surely one of the most versatile novelists writing today... The scene-setting opening is languorous and beautiful, giving full rein to Tremain's descriptive gifts... A disturbing tale and one rich in detail

—— Daily Express

Intriguing

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times

Tremain expertly heightens the tension in a cleverly fashioned and astutely observed novel that reads like a cross between Ruth Rendell and Jean de Florette

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Tremain's extraordinary imagination has produced a powerful, unsettling novel in which two worlds and cultures collide

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Tremain writes about this part of France so well because she has known it since childhood, and she captures a sensuality in the landscape that is both attractive and eerie... It is an enthralling book about the catastrophic disruption honesty can bring

—— Siobhan Kane , Irish Times

The novel has all the formal structure of a medieval morality tale, along with its traditional dichotomies: rus and urbe, avarice and asceticism, chastity and lust

—— Guardian

Rose Tremain's thrilling Trespass is set in an obsure valley in Southern France... To be read slowly; Tremain's writing is too exquisite to hurry

—— The Times

Timeless but rooted; tangible but otherworldly. Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time

—— Scotland on Sunday

Rose Tremain's novel begins with a scream and barely loosens its grip amid the sumptuously written pages that follow...subtly harnesses the stifling heat and dangerously feral landscape of southern France to unspool a psychologically disconcerting story of family skeletons and outsider tensions

—— Metro

Like a sinister edition of A Place In the Sun directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with the depth and subtlety that make the book far more than a mere thriller

—— You Magazine (Daily Mail)
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