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The Palm House
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.
Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.
Laura has her own problems: with a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.
A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility.
Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.
Laura has her own problems: with a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.
A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
March 15, 2026
I did look into that, when I got in. I looked at prices for Paris and for Amsterdam. It was an easy thing to talk myself out of, though, when there was still so much I hadn’t seen in London. Putnam and I kept meaning to go to the Cabinet War Rooms. He often said, too, that I should go with him and his father one weekend to visit the ancient cycads in the Kew Gardens Palm House
The Palm House is Gwendoline Riley’s seventh novel and one that while it doesn’t really stretch the boundaries of her work, adds to an impressive oeuvre.
The first person narrator here is Laura, who as often with Riley’s narrators is too busy dissecting the life of her friends and her parents to analyse her own, which emerges in various vignettes, leaving that exercise to the reader. In my review of First Love I said: "It is both a difficulty with but also a strength of the novel, that it is quite hard to piece together Neve’s life, house moves and relationships, but that it also doesn't really matter," which I commented in my review of could be ported over simply by substituting Aislinn for Neve, and here the same would work for Laura.
The novel opens, although not dated, in October 2017 and the dust red skies over London from the Storm Ophelia sand storm, but this is rather a backdrop to the narrator’s conversation with her closest friend, Putnam (clearly his preferred sobriquet rather than Ed or Edward), aged 49 and older than Laura. Putnam has worked at a cultural magazine, Sequence, for 25 years, almost his entire career. Some months earlier a new editor was appointed by the publishing firm that owns the publication, after the death of the long-standing previous editor, and his desire to inject some modern approaches to the rather traditional, 50+ year old magazine (his vision is ‘a sort of London version of the New Yorker’) have gone down badly with the staff, and indeed with the loyal readership (‘of course we want to bring them along if we can’ retorts the new editor), and Putnam has resigned.
The narrator also introduces us to her rather quirky mother (a Riley staple) and the contrast to Putnam is striking:
I once tried to describe my mother's particular way of talking to Putnam. I was trying to nail down something about the mixture of hyperbole and deprecation, about a world where sod's law was the natural law. Putnam, it turned out, was the wrong person to deliberate with.
'Northern,' he said.
'Eh?'
'The word you're looking for is Northern.'
'Everything's a laff,' he said. 'Nothing's to be taken seriously. Nothing's worthy of the slightest bit of respect. Or thought. Nothing can be sat with for even one second. Instead we get this annihilating flippancy. I'm sorry, Laura, I loathe it. It's everything I've fought against for my whole life.'
And she also covers, inter Alia, her absent father, and her brief relationship with a rakish actor, one who indeed seemed to be acting in real-life the part of a rakish actor.
But the novel’s real power is in the portrayal of Laura and Putnam’s friendship as well as their self-limiting view that they don’t deserve anything more, their life confined to a small circle of friends and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), Laura’s rejection (see the opening quote) of a friend’s suggestion that she might eg try a holiday, even a brief city break, rather telling (and they don’t even make it out to Kew and the Palm House).
For now, my new habit was to look around the Tate during my lunch hour. I crossed the river at Vauxhall Bridge. There was the knock-knock sound of my boots on Milbank, the sudden wind, the large leaves cart-wheeling along the promenade.
After work, if I wanted to think about the future, I might have a drink in one of those dark-wood, etched-glass Victorian pubs near Pimlico, sitting on a wobbling stool by the wall.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
The Palm House is Gwendoline Riley’s seventh novel and one that while it doesn’t really stretch the boundaries of her work, adds to an impressive oeuvre.
The first person narrator here is Laura, who as often with Riley’s narrators is too busy dissecting the life of her friends and her parents to analyse her own, which emerges in various vignettes, leaving that exercise to the reader. In my review of First Love I said: "It is both a difficulty with but also a strength of the novel, that it is quite hard to piece together Neve’s life, house moves and relationships, but that it also doesn't really matter," which I commented in my review of could be ported over simply by substituting Aislinn for Neve, and here the same would work for Laura.
The novel opens, although not dated, in October 2017 and the dust red skies over London from the Storm Ophelia sand storm, but this is rather a backdrop to the narrator’s conversation with her closest friend, Putnam (clearly his preferred sobriquet rather than Ed or Edward), aged 49 and older than Laura. Putnam has worked at a cultural magazine, Sequence, for 25 years, almost his entire career. Some months earlier a new editor was appointed by the publishing firm that owns the publication, after the death of the long-standing previous editor, and his desire to inject some modern approaches to the rather traditional, 50+ year old magazine (his vision is ‘a sort of London version of the New Yorker’) have gone down badly with the staff, and indeed with the loyal readership (‘of course we want to bring them along if we can’ retorts the new editor), and Putnam has resigned.
The narrator also introduces us to her rather quirky mother (a Riley staple) and the contrast to Putnam is striking:
I once tried to describe my mother's particular way of talking to Putnam. I was trying to nail down something about the mixture of hyperbole and deprecation, about a world where sod's law was the natural law. Putnam, it turned out, was the wrong person to deliberate with.
'Northern,' he said.
'Eh?'
'The word you're looking for is Northern.'
'Everything's a laff,' he said. 'Nothing's to be taken seriously. Nothing's worthy of the slightest bit of respect. Or thought. Nothing can be sat with for even one second. Instead we get this annihilating flippancy. I'm sorry, Laura, I loathe it. It's everything I've fought against for my whole life.'
And she also covers, inter Alia, her absent father, and her brief relationship with a rakish actor, one who indeed seemed to be acting in real-life the part of a rakish actor.
But the novel’s real power is in the portrayal of Laura and Putnam’s friendship as well as their self-limiting view that they don’t deserve anything more, their life confined to a small circle of friends and a relatively small part of South London (Putnam works in Tooley Street and lives close by in Shad Thames), Laura’s rejection (see the opening quote) of a friend’s suggestion that she might eg try a holiday, even a brief city break, rather telling (and they don’t even make it out to Kew and the Palm House).
For now, my new habit was to look around the Tate during my lunch hour. I crossed the river at Vauxhall Bridge. There was the knock-knock sound of my boots on Milbank, the sudden wind, the large leaves cart-wheeling along the promenade.
After work, if I wanted to think about the future, I might have a drink in one of those dark-wood, etched-glass Victorian pubs near Pimlico, sitting on a wobbling stool by the wall.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Palm House is only the second novel that I've read by Gwendoline Riley. It is a much more passive and thoughtful novel than My Phantoms. For me it was missing impact in a lot of areas but if you read it as a look at the lives of ordinary people growing older and coming to terms with inevitable changes then it does exactly what I should. I think, after the beginning when dealing with Laura's chaotic (and often dangerous) childhood, I expected more surprises.
However we follow the course of Laura's life working for Sequence, a publication which caters to "young fogeys" and where she becomes friends with Putnam whose nose is put out of joint following the arrival of a new editor who wants to shake things up.
The Palm House is a gentle novel with its characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they try to find careers and homes where they can be happy - or at least live without mould and caterpillars.
I enjoyed it to a point even if it felt much more disjointed than "Phantoms". I still need to read more by this author. Her prose is exquisite.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Picador for the digital review copy.
However we follow the course of Laura's life working for Sequence, a publication which caters to "young fogeys" and where she becomes friends with Putnam whose nose is put out of joint following the arrival of a new editor who wants to shake things up.
The Palm House is a gentle novel with its characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they try to find careers and homes where they can be happy - or at least live without mould and caterpillars.
I enjoyed it to a point even if it felt much more disjointed than "Phantoms". I still need to read more by this author. Her prose is exquisite.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Picador for the digital review copy.
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April 29, 2026Riley is a master prose stylist. Her work is dark, perceptive, ultimately focused in realism. In all her books, especially this one, she doesn’t tell you who the characters are - she shows you who they are through their dialogue and actions. She understands her characters to their core. The prose is also deceptively simple. There’s so much bubbling under the surface if you pause and take the time to think about how she is presenting information to you. This is why she is one of my favourite authors and why her works always have a lasting impact on me. The Palm House was no exception. As I finished the last page I was like, hmmm… but then little details of the text could not escape me as I further analyzed the narrator and her relationships within the novel. I found that the relationships she examines to be interesting, complicated, and new to what she has done before, but also very familiar.
This is worth the read for anyone who has read Riley before, but I still think her best work is found in My Phantoms and First Love and where readers should first start if they are unfamiliar with her work.
This is worth the read for anyone who has read Riley before, but I still think her best work is found in My Phantoms and First Love and where readers should first start if they are unfamiliar with her work.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Palm House, the latest novel by Gwendoline Riley, is another striking slice of contemporary life, of a woman - this time Laura Miller - with a complex relationship with her mother and of her friendship with an older man, Edward Putnam (just Putnam to his friends). He is a long term writer with a magazine, Sequence, but about to be shoved out by a new, younger editor. Laura is also adrift in her own way, and the friendship between these two souls forms the backbone of this novel.
I have long admired Riley's fiction - I came onboard with her debut Cold Water in 2002 - and have read everything she has published since. The Palm House treads her familiar themes, but never feels like a repition. From the beautiful opening sentences, Riley grips in a way few manage; she has a sharp eye, and a scapel-sharp style of prose that gets right to the beating heart of her characters. If you've not read her before, this is a great place to start. If you've liked her previous works, this one will be a treat.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
I have long admired Riley's fiction - I came onboard with her debut Cold Water in 2002 - and have read everything she has published since. The Palm House treads her familiar themes, but never feels like a repition. From the beautiful opening sentences, Riley grips in a way few manage; she has a sharp eye, and a scapel-sharp style of prose that gets right to the beating heart of her characters. If you've not read her before, this is a great place to start. If you've liked her previous works, this one will be a treat.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
April 21, 2026
James Wood, a critic I like, said of Riley: “We truly see her characters, in their descriptive nakedness, alive and horridly vivid.” True. There’s something skinless about Riley’s writing of her characters’ emotional states. She expresses *feeling* so well. In her sharp, carefully textured, and beautifully paced sentences, Riley gives the impression of a cold eye holding things up and exposing them in the sun’s bright glare. It can feel merciless. It’s thrilling.
Actually, Riley’s previous novel My Phantoms was even more severe in this regard, though that made sense considering the relationships in that book. The Palm House is less bleak, but it still hits its target; it’s still full of clean punches and crisp slaps. I just love her writing—her control. Her ear for speech is uncommonly good. I feel safe in her hands.
This is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far. Very addictive. I’m generally a slow reader, but this was so supple and nimble that I simply breezed through it.
On the strength of just two books, Riley has become one of my favourite contemporary novelists. I’m more eager than ever now to read First Love.
Actually, Riley’s previous novel My Phantoms was even more severe in this regard, though that made sense considering the relationships in that book. The Palm House is less bleak, but it still hits its target; it’s still full of clean punches and crisp slaps. I just love her writing—her control. Her ear for speech is uncommonly good. I feel safe in her hands.
This is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far. Very addictive. I’m generally a slow reader, but this was so supple and nimble that I simply breezed through it.
On the strength of just two books, Riley has become one of my favourite contemporary novelists. I’m more eager than ever now to read First Love.
Want to Read
April 25, 2026I bought a copy and it was slightly damaged and I'm mildly devastated about it, but I'm being so brave <3
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April 8, 2026
Somehow this story of two London friends - Laura and Edmund - was too convoluted, two cold to make me invested in any of the characters. Sad, considering how much I'd enjoyed Gwendoline Riley's previous books.
April 7, 2026
I was in pub with Laura and Putnam. We had a good time.
March 7, 2026
Brilliant slices of life, with magnificently captured dialogue. Not really a novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 22, 2026
This was really good. Definitely a book you should read in a day/as fast as possible (it's not that long). Not as good as My Phantoms, it doesn't have the same tight focus. The theme seems to be 'dealing with shitty men' but with absolutely no self pity or moralising. Also getting older, middle age, dealing with the past. She is so, so good at dialogue and dark humour. Just such brilliant character details. Like the father lifting up her armpit and asking the uncle to smell it while saying, 'Is it just me, or is that a pretty ripe smell?' Just BRILLIANTLY character revealing. And I liked how it had a happy ending. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.
April 7, 2026
I really love her writing but this one didn’t deliver the sucker punch of my phantoms (the best book ever). although I really enjoyed it, I guess I didn’t get why this story in particular had to be told.
October 9, 2025
gwendoline riley cuts so close to the bone. utter excellence.
April 29, 2026
At the time of writing I haven’t actually finished reading this book, but I’m in a fairly foul and wound-up mood at the moment, so let’s try an experiment. If you’re reading this, it means I’ve made it through the last 53 pages and they haven’t changed my mind.
*
I read this book over three days in a haze of indifference. Even by the standards of anecdotal realism this is downright trivial stuff: thin, unpressured, and becalmed. I know we live in an age of runaway praise inflation, but reading the backflap of this book makes me feel like the cuckoos have taken over. Are you telling me that this really “confirms Riley’s position among the finest novelists working today”? I’m supposed to believe that this “confirms Riley as one of Britain’s best?” Are you seriously telling me that “nobody writes better?” Get a fucking grip, because this sort of hyperbole just embarrasses all of us. Look, it’s all perfectly well-balanced and lean, but come on. Make it make sense.
Still, all power to her for winning the Windham–Campbell Prize. A hundred and fifty big ones is a life-changing amount of money to a writer of literary fiction in these illiterate, shitbox times.
*
I read this book over three days in a haze of indifference. Even by the standards of anecdotal realism this is downright trivial stuff: thin, unpressured, and becalmed. I know we live in an age of runaway praise inflation, but reading the backflap of this book makes me feel like the cuckoos have taken over. Are you telling me that this really “confirms Riley’s position among the finest novelists working today”? I’m supposed to believe that this “confirms Riley as one of Britain’s best?” Are you seriously telling me that “nobody writes better?” Get a fucking grip, because this sort of hyperbole just embarrasses all of us. Look, it’s all perfectly well-balanced and lean, but come on. Make it make sense.
Still, all power to her for winning the Windham–Campbell Prize. A hundred and fifty big ones is a life-changing amount of money to a writer of literary fiction in these illiterate, shitbox times.
May 6, 2026
She’s such an intriguing writer but at the same time sort of hostile or alienating to read? I liked this quite a lot. The dialogue is so good. The story seems to be about security, in a way, everyone is always just one minor thing away from being tipped over the edge of insecurity into loneliness or homelessness. There’s a dark edge to everything. It is quite a Londony book in that way. I was so grateful for where she lets the light in, mostly through the relationship with Putnam (I *love* Putnam, I also want him for a friend). What else is there than friendship and trust and the pleasure of collegiality. None of which is possible without safety, first, having a home that’s safe from predators… I thought a lot about the book Brian I also read this year. And that Muriel Spark book about the ‘pissoir du texte’ (I think it’s A Far Cry from Kensington).
April 5, 2026
Very gentle addition to Riley’s collection of deceptively miniature masterpieces. I know it’s hilarious that any of her novels could be spoiled - we read her for the sheer beauty of the prose and her snappy dialogue. And yet, I did love that Riley’s narrator ends up happy, as happy as they ever get- what a supremely confident ending in its total understatement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this advance copy.
Gentle and thoughtful, this novel is like a set of short stories guiding through the experiences that make a person.
It doesn’t follow a timeline or plot but is more about the mood, smoothly moving through the characters’ past and checking into the present day in beats.
Laura, the protagonist, remained quite mysterious to me, shown through these moments in her life.
In points the feeling is lonely and cruel, others showing the strength of a long term friendship and the difficulty of reading people’s feelings.
There was also the strong sense of negative economic change in society - that a standard wage cannot buy a home, that an egotistical bigwig can take a top job they don’t care about, throw their weight around and crush a community.
I’ve read each of Gwendoline’s previous books and can’t wait to she what she does next.
Gentle and thoughtful, this novel is like a set of short stories guiding through the experiences that make a person.
It doesn’t follow a timeline or plot but is more about the mood, smoothly moving through the characters’ past and checking into the present day in beats.
Laura, the protagonist, remained quite mysterious to me, shown through these moments in her life.
In points the feeling is lonely and cruel, others showing the strength of a long term friendship and the difficulty of reading people’s feelings.
There was also the strong sense of negative economic change in society - that a standard wage cannot buy a home, that an egotistical bigwig can take a top job they don’t care about, throw their weight around and crush a community.
I’ve read each of Gwendoline’s previous books and can’t wait to she what she does next.
January 23, 2026
Read it for the sentences because they are crisp, concise revelations of character and plot. That might make it sound too cool or detached but there is a wizardry at work in the writing which allows you to care and engage with the story and the characters. There is also something about this writer's work which presents a puzzle that keeps you reading. I really recommend reading Gwendoline Riley's books and this is an excellent place to start. I will miss Laura and Putnam for the rest of the week and will think of them from time to time.
Thanks to Netgalley for ARC.
Thanks to Netgalley for ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In the office, meanwhile, I heard Putnam was being fantastic: keeping everyone else’s spirits up, protecting what he could. Containment was the policy. The mediocrity of Shove was ever-ready and rapacious but Vik and Putnam, Katherine told me, were running interference in editorial meetings, and had a nice line, too, in steamrollering: there could be no argument about the pieces the staff wanted to run.
In Books of My Life set of questions in the Guardian earlier this year, Saba Sams (possibly one of the hottest properties in the UK literary fiction scene) said in response to the prompt “The Writer Who changed my mind” : “Gwendoline Riley, for repeatedly writing claustrophobic novels from the perspective of an enigmatic female protagonist. I internalised at some point that writers were supposed to leap from book to book showing off their huge range, but I find Riley’s approach far braver and more compelling.”
And that perfectly captures I think the sense of this author with her very distinctive approach to novels (even if I believe the author – whose approach to interviews/book signings seems in keeping with her novels - does not agree with some of the characterisations).
I have read her two previous novels (her 5th and 6th I believe): “First Love” (2017) which was almost universally recognised on book prize shortlists (Women’s Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, Goldsmiths Prize, Dylan Thomas Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Prize); “My Phantoms” (2021) which was almost universally recognised on book of the year reviews (with only a Folio Prize shortlisting); and now this her 7th “The Palm House” ubiquitous this time for its appearance on 2026 previews.
I would characterise her recent approach as: short novels written in non-linear fragments; a first party female narrator (the New Statesmen has previously said the narrators appear to age across her books in line with the author); us learning about that narrator through two sources – firstly incidents from their past (Riley is far more interested in what lead to the person we see today than in actually exploring present day actions or especially their future prospects), and secondly their observations of others (albeit not to Cusk “annihilated perspective sense”); a forensic level of observations – one area that Riley repeatedly comes back to in interviews, and which she deploys in her writing via her narrators, is her ability to observe and capture on paper verbal tics/mannerisms/ways of being in the world – often invisible to the actual person; and from that a focus on flaws – one of her favourite words I have seen in interviews about both her previous books is about people being incorrigible; dysfunctional family dynamics and particularly difficult mothers.
And notwithstanding that Riley has slightly changed her focus here: perhaps her most London based novel (in particular South London in and around Tolley Street – an area that for me – due to London Bridge station - is the welcome gateway to my City work as well as the even more welcome exit at the day’s end from the London grime to the Surrey Hills); one where she has specifically drawn on the writing of Penelope Fitzgerald to present a very English collective around a common goal; thematically the exploration of accommodation in the literal form of rooms/housing extending to accommodation of ones quirks within a group ………….. all of the characteristic approaches I mention feature here in my view.
Anchored in late 2017, the main character and first party narrator is Laura Miller – and the centre of the novel is her friendship (going back to university days at the UCL) with Edmund Putnam.
Edmund is a long standing cultural editor at Sequence, a 50+ year magazine with elements of the Spectator, New Statesman and TLS (as an aside Riley was previously married to a TLS editor) once seen as something of an young-fogey magazine (Ken Barlow being portrayed once as a fan in Corrie), then a little more politically engaged but now subject to a corporate make over from an owner-imposed editor who Edmund hates and who does not seem to understand the magazine’s strengths. He is also dealing with the death of his father
For Laura we learn more of her past – her (of course) difficult relationship with a mother at once overbearing and neglectful (one the more seedy parts of the novel has a 16 year old Laura being groomed by a TV and stage comedian with her mother’s apparent disinterest), her various houses and the people she encounters which include an over the top actor and a TV producer; some other incidents from her childhood (which are part autobiographical) and so on.
I have to say that I did not entirely think this was Riley at her finest: the actor we are told “was so actorly, he seemed at times to be acting the part of an actor”; in a novel which features office politics and has an overbearing un self-aware boss we get a reference to Laura’s father being unable to watch The Office as it was too close to his corporate life; in what I would call sitcom style a character is given an unlikely surname – Halfpenny – just so he can be given a nickname – Shove. And all of these seemed a little too uncharacteristically unsubtle for me.
But its one which will I think satisfy her many fans and may well give her more prize listing this year.
My thanks to Picador for an ARC via NetGalley
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April 24, 2026Thanks to NYRB or the gifted copy
If you’ve read either of Riley’s US releases, The Palm House may surprise you.
While First Love was a prickly, claustrophobic study of domestic power, and My Phantoms was a razor-sharp, devastating inventory of family resentment, The Palm House is a much quieter, more observational work that presents the cruelty of the past with a gentle, startlingly unsentimental clarity.
Don’t get me wrong, some of what we’ve found in her previous works is in here, that complex (understatement) mother-daughter relationship, an older man (this time a friend), and Riley’s mastery of dialogue, but the vibes are completely different. This is more melancholic and passive. Through a set of vignettes, we see flashes of Laura's history presented as simple, undeniable facts. Instead of building toward a dramatic climax or neatly packaged healing, Riley just shows us the damage and asks us to observe the guarded, emotionally distant adult who survived it. This is really a sneaky way of me saying that not much happens here while so much is happening.
We see Laura, almost 40, finally reach a form of stability - she has a job, she’s managed to buy a small flat - but she remains deeply, almost aggressively, passive. She is a watchful, quiet presence who simply absorbed the cruelty of her youth, whether from her mother, her father or the gross, older comedian who took advantage of her as a teenager. Detached is the perfect word for both Laura and Riley’s storytelling. We see this mirrored in Laura’s older friend, Edmund. Pushed out of a decades-long career, he is watching the London he knew disappear, seeing families and coworkers priced out of the very neighborhoods his working-class parents once afforded. Even the recent death of his father, whom he cared for, is something he skirts around. It’s just another form of avoiding trauma, of refusing to confront the damage.
This is exactly the kind of book I love, the kind where the quiet, ordinary lives of everyday people are elevated simply by being written about with this much clarity. It just felt true.
-------------------
I keep thinking about the title and how it reflects the illusion of preservation in Laura's and Edmund’s lives, the question of whether true stability or just being trapped, and the way both people and institutions inflate their own importance.
A gentler, melancholic departure from Riley’s usual sharp friction.
A quiet, deeply unsentimental look at mid-life, memory, and the ghosts we've learned to live with.
If you’ve read either of Riley’s US releases, The Palm House may surprise you.
While First Love was a prickly, claustrophobic study of domestic power, and My Phantoms was a razor-sharp, devastating inventory of family resentment, The Palm House is a much quieter, more observational work that presents the cruelty of the past with a gentle, startlingly unsentimental clarity.
Don’t get me wrong, some of what we’ve found in her previous works is in here, that complex (understatement) mother-daughter relationship, an older man (this time a friend), and Riley’s mastery of dialogue, but the vibes are completely different. This is more melancholic and passive. Through a set of vignettes, we see flashes of Laura's history presented as simple, undeniable facts. Instead of building toward a dramatic climax or neatly packaged healing, Riley just shows us the damage and asks us to observe the guarded, emotionally distant adult who survived it. This is really a sneaky way of me saying that not much happens here while so much is happening.
We see Laura, almost 40, finally reach a form of stability - she has a job, she’s managed to buy a small flat - but she remains deeply, almost aggressively, passive. She is a watchful, quiet presence who simply absorbed the cruelty of her youth, whether from her mother, her father or the gross, older comedian who took advantage of her as a teenager. Detached is the perfect word for both Laura and Riley’s storytelling. We see this mirrored in Laura’s older friend, Edmund. Pushed out of a decades-long career, he is watching the London he knew disappear, seeing families and coworkers priced out of the very neighborhoods his working-class parents once afforded. Even the recent death of his father, whom he cared for, is something he skirts around. It’s just another form of avoiding trauma, of refusing to confront the damage.
This is exactly the kind of book I love, the kind where the quiet, ordinary lives of everyday people are elevated simply by being written about with this much clarity. It just felt true.
-------------------
I keep thinking about the title and how it reflects the illusion of preservation in Laura's and Edmund’s lives, the question of whether true stability or just being trapped, and the way both people and institutions inflate their own importance.
A gentler, melancholic departure from Riley’s usual sharp friction.
A quiet, deeply unsentimental look at mid-life, memory, and the ghosts we've learned to live with.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for years, frequently meeting in an old Southwark riverside pub to gossip, reminisce and put the world to rights. However, Edmund doesn’t seem quite himself, his father has died and he’s handed his notice in at the magazine “Sequence” where he worked for 25 years. The latter in part is owing to an insufferable young new editor, Simon Halfpenny, known as Shove and not affectionately so, who envisages a new direction for the magazine. Laura herself has her issues, some of which lie in the past. She has an awkward relationship with her impatient and tricky mother who can be disinterested and detached and Laura’s day-to-day existence can be described as precarious. However, her paramount concern is her friend Putnam who seems to be sinking deeper and deeper into misery and despair and so she needs to try to break the ever deepening descent into the slough of despond.
I’ve not read this author before but she pulls me into the storytelling with a very atmospheric start, there’s the old pub in which the friends meet, the Saharan sandstorm of 2017 affecting London as well as the magazine. I like her style of writing, there’s clarity and colour but nothing unnecessary which allows the friendship of this pair, their personalities, the characters in their lives and the fantastic dialogue to shine through. It’s witty, making me smile at some of the images conveyed.
Laura’s early memories with her mother do make me smile though I have absolutely no clue of the origins of an oft repeated phrase “Speaka to Charlie”! However, it can be a separate and lonely existence, until Laura is doing her A-levels and from then on her recollections are part joyous, part concerning and scary as her naivety gets her into trouble and some are sad or demonstrate the instability of her life.
Her relationships, especially with Putnam are reflective, their dialogue is intelligent, witty and entertaining and makes me feel a bit like a fly on the wall. Putnam‘s grief is palpable as is his dissatisfaction with aspects of his life which is clear for all to see. As for Laura, perhaps now her life is about to take an upward turn and maybe Putnam is over the worst.
Overall, this is a reflective, well observed character study which I really enjoy and it makes me want to check out the author’s other work.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Pan Macmillan/Picador for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.
I’ve not read this author before but she pulls me into the storytelling with a very atmospheric start, there’s the old pub in which the friends meet, the Saharan sandstorm of 2017 affecting London as well as the magazine. I like her style of writing, there’s clarity and colour but nothing unnecessary which allows the friendship of this pair, their personalities, the characters in their lives and the fantastic dialogue to shine through. It’s witty, making me smile at some of the images conveyed.
Laura’s early memories with her mother do make me smile though I have absolutely no clue of the origins of an oft repeated phrase “Speaka to Charlie”! However, it can be a separate and lonely existence, until Laura is doing her A-levels and from then on her recollections are part joyous, part concerning and scary as her naivety gets her into trouble and some are sad or demonstrate the instability of her life.
Her relationships, especially with Putnam are reflective, their dialogue is intelligent, witty and entertaining and makes me feel a bit like a fly on the wall. Putnam‘s grief is palpable as is his dissatisfaction with aspects of his life which is clear for all to see. As for Laura, perhaps now her life is about to take an upward turn and maybe Putnam is over the worst.
Overall, this is a reflective, well observed character study which I really enjoy and it makes me want to check out the author’s other work.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Pan Macmillan/Picador for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This was my first time reading Gwendoline Riley, an author whose work has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous literary prizes, so I was keen to see what all the attention was about. The Palm House immediately establishes itself as a novel far more concerned with mood, character, and observation than with plot, and it’s clear early on that this is a deliberate choice rather than a shortcoming.
The story unfolds largely through shared drinks, drifting conversations, and recollections between two friends, Laura and Putnam. On the surface, very little happens, but Riley has a sharp eye for the emotional undercurrents that run beneath everyday interactions. Putnam’s grief, Laura’s low-level dissatisfaction with her life, the quiet absurdities of cultural workplace politics, and a shared nostalgia for a fading London are all rendered with subtlety and restraint. These elements combine to create something quietly poignant, often wry, and occasionally uncomfortably funny.
I enjoyed the novel’s slow, meandering, character-driven approach and its finely tuned observational style. Riley excels at capturing the things people don’t quite say, as well as the awkward pauses and small irritations that shape long-standing relationships. That said, the lack of a more defined narrative arc may prove frustrating or distracting for some readers, particularly those looking for momentum or a clear sense of direction. It’s a book that asks for patience and rewards attentiveness, rather than one that pulls you along through plot alone.
The Palm House isn’t a blockbuster or a page-turner in the conventional sense, but it lingers in the mind after finishing. It’s reflective, intelligent, and quietly affecting — a novel that finds meaning in the ordinary and discomfort in the familiar. While I’m not entirely sure it was the ideal introduction to Riley’s work, it has certainly left me curious to read more from her.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan | Picador for the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The story unfolds largely through shared drinks, drifting conversations, and recollections between two friends, Laura and Putnam. On the surface, very little happens, but Riley has a sharp eye for the emotional undercurrents that run beneath everyday interactions. Putnam’s grief, Laura’s low-level dissatisfaction with her life, the quiet absurdities of cultural workplace politics, and a shared nostalgia for a fading London are all rendered with subtlety and restraint. These elements combine to create something quietly poignant, often wry, and occasionally uncomfortably funny.
I enjoyed the novel’s slow, meandering, character-driven approach and its finely tuned observational style. Riley excels at capturing the things people don’t quite say, as well as the awkward pauses and small irritations that shape long-standing relationships. That said, the lack of a more defined narrative arc may prove frustrating or distracting for some readers, particularly those looking for momentum or a clear sense of direction. It’s a book that asks for patience and rewards attentiveness, rather than one that pulls you along through plot alone.
The Palm House isn’t a blockbuster or a page-turner in the conventional sense, but it lingers in the mind after finishing. It’s reflective, intelligent, and quietly affecting — a novel that finds meaning in the ordinary and discomfort in the familiar. While I’m not entirely sure it was the ideal introduction to Riley’s work, it has certainly left me curious to read more from her.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan | Picador for the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
TW: SA
Gwendoline Riley’s latest novel is a quiet, contemplative missive from the leading edge of mid-life, a life not quite in crisis, but observing crises around her. It's Laura Miller's friends who can't get it together, like Edmund Putnam, who's just resigned from his job after feeling pushed out by the new boss, and her boyfriend, Lawrence Wells, an actor who can't ever seem to turn it off and be present in her life.
From this place in life, about to turn 40, Laura looks back too, to childhood of mild neglect in Wirral, outside of Liverpool, and adolescence, first encounters with friends and villains posing as friends, and to university, where she first met Putnam and started working her way into the fold of the fictional left-leaning politically-plugged-in magazine, Sequence, at a time when Britain would have been transitioning between the Thatcherism hangover of John Major to Tony Blair. A big time to write for an important political magazine.
The Palm House brought a mixed set of memories for me -- some good ones of my twenties writing for an alt weekly when it was still the Wild West, pitching and writing the craziest shit we could come up with (at worst sticking it on the web site), and some not so good ones of my thirties during the downturn, the buyouts, the conglomeration. The paper I worked at survived, but at great cost to the staff and freelance crew. Sequence seems to have fared better, after a brief dalliance with a nightmare Young Turk editor-in-chief looking to turn the whole operation from itself, the world's only Sequence, into to "London's New Yorker”, an experiment doomed to fail, one with a familiar high cost: Putnam’s resignation, his institutional knowledge gone with it, gossipy behind the scenes process pieces and a good deal of a once-loyal readership. Poof.
Laura is not unscathed by life, of course, just thick skinned in this otherwise gentle text, with a droll sense of humor about everything that comes at her. Very English indeed.
Gwendoline Riley’s latest novel is a quiet, contemplative missive from the leading edge of mid-life, a life not quite in crisis, but observing crises around her. It's Laura Miller's friends who can't get it together, like Edmund Putnam, who's just resigned from his job after feeling pushed out by the new boss, and her boyfriend, Lawrence Wells, an actor who can't ever seem to turn it off and be present in her life.
From this place in life, about to turn 40, Laura looks back too, to childhood of mild neglect in Wirral, outside of Liverpool, and adolescence, first encounters with friends and villains posing as friends, and to university, where she first met Putnam and started working her way into the fold of the fictional left-leaning politically-plugged-in magazine, Sequence, at a time when Britain would have been transitioning between the Thatcherism hangover of John Major to Tony Blair. A big time to write for an important political magazine.
The Palm House brought a mixed set of memories for me -- some good ones of my twenties writing for an alt weekly when it was still the Wild West, pitching and writing the craziest shit we could come up with (at worst sticking it on the web site), and some not so good ones of my thirties during the downturn, the buyouts, the conglomeration. The paper I worked at survived, but at great cost to the staff and freelance crew. Sequence seems to have fared better, after a brief dalliance with a nightmare Young Turk editor-in-chief looking to turn the whole operation from itself, the world's only Sequence, into to "London's New Yorker”, an experiment doomed to fail, one with a familiar high cost: Putnam’s resignation, his institutional knowledge gone with it, gossipy behind the scenes process pieces and a good deal of a once-loyal readership. Poof.
Laura is not unscathed by life, of course, just thick skinned in this otherwise gentle text, with a droll sense of humor about everything that comes at her. Very English indeed.
May 6, 2026
Have you ever walked the street, sat in the bar or in any public place for that matter where unknowingly you became privy to the conversations between people you don't know, you become engrossed in it and somehow the feeling of what happens next engulfs you?
This is how this book made me feel. I saw this book on one of my favourite bookstagram accounts and I immediately wanted to read it. The opening of the book is a general conversation between two friends and slowly these two friends Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam will take you on a leisurely walk through the alleys and the bylanes of London reminiscing about their lives.
This masterfully written book will not give you the proper plot or introduce the characters in depth to you. You are merely a spectator and you walk with the characters along the way wherever they take you, to the present, to the past, to let you know how their story unfolds. You become so engrossed in their lives, you want to know what they are up to and what happened before but neither you're their companion nor a stranger.
The book is funny, witty, sharp and full of dark humour. When I finished this book I didn't understand why it is called 'The Palm House' but as I went back and researched a bit it clicked.
The palm house literally means: "a glasshouse for growing palms and other tropical plants". How i deduced its meaning is: the atmosphere where the same kind of people can belong, it's about enduring friendships between people belonging to the same set.
It is a unique concept and I liked it a lot. It's also my first time reading this author but i am definitely going to check out her other works as well.
If you want to switch genres or go for a light read then consider this book and try to read it with an open mind. Although when I was reading this book I felt a certain amount of iciness and warmth at the same time. This book is definitely a bag of mixed emotions. It's not black and white, it's not as colourful as a rainbow, it's Grey.
PS: It's a short book consisting of 160 pages only, but equally impactful.
This is how this book made me feel. I saw this book on one of my favourite bookstagram accounts and I immediately wanted to read it. The opening of the book is a general conversation between two friends and slowly these two friends Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam will take you on a leisurely walk through the alleys and the bylanes of London reminiscing about their lives.
This masterfully written book will not give you the proper plot or introduce the characters in depth to you. You are merely a spectator and you walk with the characters along the way wherever they take you, to the present, to the past, to let you know how their story unfolds. You become so engrossed in their lives, you want to know what they are up to and what happened before but neither you're their companion nor a stranger.
The book is funny, witty, sharp and full of dark humour. When I finished this book I didn't understand why it is called 'The Palm House' but as I went back and researched a bit it clicked.
The palm house literally means: "a glasshouse for growing palms and other tropical plants". How i deduced its meaning is: the atmosphere where the same kind of people can belong, it's about enduring friendships between people belonging to the same set.
It is a unique concept and I liked it a lot. It's also my first time reading this author but i am definitely going to check out her other works as well.
If you want to switch genres or go for a light read then consider this book and try to read it with an open mind. Although when I was reading this book I felt a certain amount of iciness and warmth at the same time. This book is definitely a bag of mixed emotions. It's not black and white, it's not as colourful as a rainbow, it's Grey.
PS: It's a short book consisting of 160 pages only, but equally impactful.
March 25, 2026
Laura and Putnam are colleagues. They work together at Sequence magazine, a high-brow editorial with a swanky London office. But when a new editor takes charge - Simon, who insists everyone call him ‘Shove’ - this is the last straw for Putnam. Middle-aged and lonely, he finds himself drifting, and it’s Laura’s job as his friend to pull him back.
Through a series of conversations over post-work drinks, we get to know Laura and Putnam as people, friends and editors. Riley inserts into these scenes a middle section all about Laura’s upbringing, too. I found this part to be well written and a frankly harrowing tale, but mainly a bit disjointed - I couldn’t really understand how this glimpse into Laura’s past related to what we see of her in the present, and wish we could have built on that more.
Onto Putnam as a character: I found him more and more grating as the story continued. But, honestly, I think maybe that was the point. After witnessing what Laura had experienced as a child, Putnam’s complaints on the whole seemed even more privileged, and I felt sorry for him for approximately 30 pages - his ‘woe is me’ schtick got old fast. But again, I think this is an important point that Riley is intentionally making. Laura and Putnam hail from totally different backgrounds, and hence have varying wants, needs and worries as adults. The meat of their conversation is often these discrepancies in their characters.
This book was, overall, an interesting character study. I think Riley has a great writer’s grasp of human nature and interaction, but, for me, the novel had a few pacing flaws and wasn’t all that memorable. However, I would definitely recommend for those of us ‘vibes over plot’ readers!
Thank you to Picador and Gwendoline Riley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
Through a series of conversations over post-work drinks, we get to know Laura and Putnam as people, friends and editors. Riley inserts into these scenes a middle section all about Laura’s upbringing, too. I found this part to be well written and a frankly harrowing tale, but mainly a bit disjointed - I couldn’t really understand how this glimpse into Laura’s past related to what we see of her in the present, and wish we could have built on that more.
Onto Putnam as a character: I found him more and more grating as the story continued. But, honestly, I think maybe that was the point. After witnessing what Laura had experienced as a child, Putnam’s complaints on the whole seemed even more privileged, and I felt sorry for him for approximately 30 pages - his ‘woe is me’ schtick got old fast. But again, I think this is an important point that Riley is intentionally making. Laura and Putnam hail from totally different backgrounds, and hence have varying wants, needs and worries as adults. The meat of their conversation is often these discrepancies in their characters.
This book was, overall, an interesting character study. I think Riley has a great writer’s grasp of human nature and interaction, but, for me, the novel had a few pacing flaws and wasn’t all that memorable. However, I would definitely recommend for those of us ‘vibes over plot’ readers!
Thank you to Picador and Gwendoline Riley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
April 22, 2026
Palm houses were Victorian concepts where people could observe another kind of life within a safe space. This is how I see this book.
The book opens where the narrator goes to a London pub with her old friend and colleague, Putnam, who has just lost his job and, as expected, is not happy about it. There are plenty of gripes and office gossip where the narrator, Laura, mostly listens and observes. Their friendship story is interspersed with sections of Laura's past, with an unsavoury teenaged exploitative episode with a famous person, her best friend from school, and the strained relationship with her mother.
This is a character study based on human connections. Friendships, brief romantic associations, work colleagues, flat mates, neighbours, family - and in each case Laura's main role is that of a passive observer. Now in her thirties, there is still that sense of observing life rather than any decisive living. But as far as her friend Putnam is concerned, she is the good listener and supportive friend he needs to see him through his dark times. Although at the end of the book they still go to the pub to gripe and gossip. Laura is the stability that he needs.
On a personal note, I like how Laura was brought up in Merseyside, where I am from, with mentions of living in the Wirral (where I was born) and visits to Liverpool and Warrington. The descriptions of these places is quite nostalgic for me. Beautifully done, too.
This short tale is written in an engaging style, which makes reading it an absorbing pleasure despite having no action to speak of. A book that stays with the reader that reinforces the comfort of friendship, no matter how quiet and mundane it appears to be.
The book opens where the narrator goes to a London pub with her old friend and colleague, Putnam, who has just lost his job and, as expected, is not happy about it. There are plenty of gripes and office gossip where the narrator, Laura, mostly listens and observes. Their friendship story is interspersed with sections of Laura's past, with an unsavoury teenaged exploitative episode with a famous person, her best friend from school, and the strained relationship with her mother.
This is a character study based on human connections. Friendships, brief romantic associations, work colleagues, flat mates, neighbours, family - and in each case Laura's main role is that of a passive observer. Now in her thirties, there is still that sense of observing life rather than any decisive living. But as far as her friend Putnam is concerned, she is the good listener and supportive friend he needs to see him through his dark times. Although at the end of the book they still go to the pub to gripe and gossip. Laura is the stability that he needs.
On a personal note, I like how Laura was brought up in Merseyside, where I am from, with mentions of living in the Wirral (where I was born) and visits to Liverpool and Warrington. The descriptions of these places is quite nostalgic for me. Beautifully done, too.
This short tale is written in an engaging style, which makes reading it an absorbing pleasure despite having no action to speak of. A book that stays with the reader that reinforces the comfort of friendship, no matter how quiet and mundane it appears to be.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Oh but this was wonderful - an instant favourite. It’s the first of Gwendoline Riley’s novels I’ve read and I will now have to (a) acquire a copy when it is published and (b) read all of her backlist.
Narrator Laura invites us into her world in small vignettes. We start with her friend and mentor Putnam who at 49 and having just lost his father is having to step away from the literary magazine for which he has been literary editor for quarter of a century.
We go on to meet the rest of the magazine staff, and to hear about how Laura met them through an event at her alma mater UCL and how ever since, despite having contributed only a few long form essays she has been one of the group congregating in a pub by the Thames on Friday evenings.
We also meet the cast of characters from Laura’s youth - her dreadful father, maternal grandmother with whom Laura and her mother lived when her parents divorced, the friend she made through following a weird and ultimately predatory standup comedian when she was a teenager, and an assorted cast of literary and media types who flit in and out of Laura’s life.
At some point we become aware that we too are butterflies landing on her somewhat passive shoulders for a few moments and we begin to feel an urgency to know how things will turn out, for Putnam and the magazine at least.
For me this belongs on the bookshelf with Margaret Drabble and Beryl Bainbridge - two of my absolute favourite writers. Riley appears to have the same gift - to provide a glimpse into the lives of people who wouldn’t appeal to me in real life but, viewed through the author’s lens become fascinating for the duration of the novel.
🙏 Picador for access to the eARC
Narrator Laura invites us into her world in small vignettes. We start with her friend and mentor Putnam who at 49 and having just lost his father is having to step away from the literary magazine for which he has been literary editor for quarter of a century.
We go on to meet the rest of the magazine staff, and to hear about how Laura met them through an event at her alma mater UCL and how ever since, despite having contributed only a few long form essays she has been one of the group congregating in a pub by the Thames on Friday evenings.
We also meet the cast of characters from Laura’s youth - her dreadful father, maternal grandmother with whom Laura and her mother lived when her parents divorced, the friend she made through following a weird and ultimately predatory standup comedian when she was a teenager, and an assorted cast of literary and media types who flit in and out of Laura’s life.
At some point we become aware that we too are butterflies landing on her somewhat passive shoulders for a few moments and we begin to feel an urgency to know how things will turn out, for Putnam and the magazine at least.
For me this belongs on the bookshelf with Margaret Drabble and Beryl Bainbridge - two of my absolute favourite writers. Riley appears to have the same gift - to provide a glimpse into the lives of people who wouldn’t appeal to me in real life but, viewed through the author’s lens become fascinating for the duration of the novel.
🙏 Picador for access to the eARC
April 6, 2026
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley is a slim, very talky novel that unfolds mostly in pubs, over drinks, with not a great deal actually happening.
Laura, the narrator, meets regularly with her friend Putnam, a magazine editor who has recently lost his job and is not taking it well. He goes over the same ground—his grievances, the state of publishing, where it all went wrong—while Laura listens, observes, and occasionally prods things along. Threaded through this are fragments of her past: an unreliable mother, an unsettling father, and a teenage relationship with a comedian that edges into something exploitative. As an adult, she seems to have settled into watching life rather than really participating in it.
That’s more or less it. There’s no real plot to speak of, and no sense of things building to anything. Putnam stays stuck, Laura stays distant, and their friendship—dry, undemanding, faintly companionable—just ticks along. The book ends pretty much where it began, with the same conversations still circling.
This landed as a two-star read for me. I could see what Riley was doing, and there’s a certain precision to the writing, but it all felt a bit pointless. The emotional distance never really shifts, and after a while the repetition—Putnam’s complaints in particular—started to wear thin. I kept waiting for something to move, or deepen, or even just change slightly, but it never quite did. In the end it felt more like listening in on the same conversation several times over than reading something that was going anywhere.
Laura, the narrator, meets regularly with her friend Putnam, a magazine editor who has recently lost his job and is not taking it well. He goes over the same ground—his grievances, the state of publishing, where it all went wrong—while Laura listens, observes, and occasionally prods things along. Threaded through this are fragments of her past: an unreliable mother, an unsettling father, and a teenage relationship with a comedian that edges into something exploitative. As an adult, she seems to have settled into watching life rather than really participating in it.
That’s more or less it. There’s no real plot to speak of, and no sense of things building to anything. Putnam stays stuck, Laura stays distant, and their friendship—dry, undemanding, faintly companionable—just ticks along. The book ends pretty much where it began, with the same conversations still circling.
This landed as a two-star read for me. I could see what Riley was doing, and there’s a certain precision to the writing, but it all felt a bit pointless. The emotional distance never really shifts, and after a while the repetition—Putnam’s complaints in particular—started to wear thin. I kept waiting for something to move, or deepen, or even just change slightly, but it never quite did. In the end it felt more like listening in on the same conversation several times over than reading something that was going anywhere.
April 27, 2026
Having seen a lot about this book I decided to pick it up on Audible. Our main characters are Laura and Putnam who have been friends for many years, spending long evenings in an ancient pub sharing gossip, talking about passions of their youth and moaning about the state of the world. However, recently, following the death of his father, Putnam has withdrawn. Added to this the magazine that he has given his life to has been hijacked by a new editor who has ideas to change things. Laura, as we learn, has her own tricky past and her life is not all plain sailing. But as Putnam sinks, she must find a way to bring him back. If you are wanting a novel with lots of plot, this isn’t for you. Laura is our first person narrator and she tells us of her life, her friendship with Putnam, this man who is a lot older than her. We learn about her past and the trauma - well I would call it trauma - that she has dealt with. This is a story about a friendship that has survived years, but I found it quite sad. These two almost feel as if they deserve nothing more than what they have. They live in London, but in a small part of South London. Their circle of friends is small and they don’t even seem to travel anywhere. They stay within their small circle. They have enough. Therefore I found that there was an almost claustrophobic feel to this novel - I was sitting side by side with these characters listening in with no way to turn my head away. Not that I wanted to particularly, I was quite drawn to what they were saying. A gentle read.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Gwendoline Riley is an author whose name kept coming to my attention, so when I saw her latest novel on NetGalley, I decided to finally read something by her. I am so delighted that I did give her a try as I loved this understated, intelligent, thoughtful novel, which says so much about contemporary life.
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam are friends. Putnam is 49, lives alone and works for a cultural magazine, 'Sequence,' which Laura occasionally writes for. Although he has worked there for twenty-five years, he leaves after the arrival of a brash, new editor. Simon 'call me Shove' Halfpenny, has no understanding of the magazine and anyone who has worked in any office will sympathise as he bulldozes his way through established working methods, causing havoc and upset.
Laura is younger and has a somewhat fraught relationship with her mother. The novel goes back and forth through her life, relating the sometimes dangerous situations that young women get themselves into. I loved seeing things through her eyes, eavesdropping on her conversations, getting to know her.
I am an avid reader and there are so many books and authors calling for your attention. The test is whether you would read more by a new author. In this case, it is a resounding yes. I want to read everything Gwendoline Riley has written and she is a discovered author that I know will become a favourite. I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley for review.
Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam are friends. Putnam is 49, lives alone and works for a cultural magazine, 'Sequence,' which Laura occasionally writes for. Although he has worked there for twenty-five years, he leaves after the arrival of a brash, new editor. Simon 'call me Shove' Halfpenny, has no understanding of the magazine and anyone who has worked in any office will sympathise as he bulldozes his way through established working methods, causing havoc and upset.
Laura is younger and has a somewhat fraught relationship with her mother. The novel goes back and forth through her life, relating the sometimes dangerous situations that young women get themselves into. I loved seeing things through her eyes, eavesdropping on her conversations, getting to know her.
I am an avid reader and there are so many books and authors calling for your attention. The test is whether you would read more by a new author. In this case, it is a resounding yes. I want to read everything Gwendoline Riley has written and she is a discovered author that I know will become a favourite. I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley for review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Palm House was my first novel by Gwendolyn Riley, and I am now eager to read her acclaimed previous novels, including First Love and My Phantoms.
Set in London, the story follows two friends, Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam. Ed has resigned from a publishing house where he worked for 25 years, disgruntled after a new manager arrives with views that clash with how the publication was built. Laura, who has also sometimes written for the magazine, becomes Ed’s younger friend.
Through Laura’s perspective, we see periods of her past, including a strained relationship with her emotionally unavailable mother and a trauma she experienced as a teenager. Laura feels somewhat stagnant—not quite where she had hoped she would be in life—and seeks to comfort Ed, who is grieving the loss of his father and sinking into a deep depression.
The novel unfolds in brief, vignette-like sections, leaving the reader to piece together what happens in between. Riley uses simple, fluid narration, focusing more on character than plot. The characters feel like ordinary people looking back on their lives and coming to terms with aging.
There is humour woven throughout, though a melancholic undercurrent remains. This will appeal to readers who enjoy introspective, character-driven fiction without a neat resolution.
Thank you NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC and for introducing me to this gifted writer.
Set in London, the story follows two friends, Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam. Ed has resigned from a publishing house where he worked for 25 years, disgruntled after a new manager arrives with views that clash with how the publication was built. Laura, who has also sometimes written for the magazine, becomes Ed’s younger friend.
Through Laura’s perspective, we see periods of her past, including a strained relationship with her emotionally unavailable mother and a trauma she experienced as a teenager. Laura feels somewhat stagnant—not quite where she had hoped she would be in life—and seeks to comfort Ed, who is grieving the loss of his father and sinking into a deep depression.
The novel unfolds in brief, vignette-like sections, leaving the reader to piece together what happens in between. Riley uses simple, fluid narration, focusing more on character than plot. The characters feel like ordinary people looking back on their lives and coming to terms with aging.
There is humour woven throughout, though a melancholic undercurrent remains. This will appeal to readers who enjoy introspective, character-driven fiction without a neat resolution.
Thank you NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC and for introducing me to this gifted writer.
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