In celebration of today’s announcement of 1989: Taylor’s Version, we feel it’s only fitting to alert you to the perfect VERVE Book to pair with your favourite Taylor Swift song…
Karma
If ‘Karma‘ is your favourite Taylor Swift song, you love it when people get what’s coming to them – time to read The Very Nice Box by Eve Gleichman and Laura Blackett. It’s a suspenseful take on an opposites-attract rom-com, featuring Ava, a buttoned-up, queer engineer, and her new tech-bro boss, who seems determined to get close to her at all costs…
august
You thrive in the summer and pine for the smell of SPF, summer barbecues and long days in the sun as soon as autumn comes around. If this is you, we suggest reading Chloe Michelle Howarth’s Sunburn, an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp – all set during a long hot summer.
no body, no crime
You love crime dramas and need to know who the culprit is whenever a mystery arises. You’re the kind of person who turns something over in their mind until you hit an answer. If so, we recommend reading Heather Young’s The Distant Dead, a chilling murder mystery that will get inside your head.
this is me trying
A lot of us have felt vulnerability like this before – we’re trying but our best doesn’t feel good enough. If ‘this is me trying’ is your current favourite, head to the bookshop to pick up a copy of Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe. Sharp but vulnerable, funny yet unsettling, Ripe portrays one millennial woman’s journey through our late-capitalist hellscape and offers a brilliantly incisive look at the absurdities of modern life.
Bad Blood
Let’s be real, if this is your pick, you’ve been stabbed in the back one too many times. Relate a little too much? We recommend reading Impostor Syndrome by Kathy Wang, a cat-and-mouse chase set in the Silicon Valley tech industry that looks at the complex relationships between women in the workplace.
I Can See You
When you daydream, you picture yourself as a Catwoman-esque, badass heister and notorious thief. You have an impeccable fashion sense and you also like to push the boundaries of what you can get away with. If you relate to this, read The Dazzle of The Light, a sparkling historical novel set in the 1920s, inspired by the notorious all-female crime syndicate known as the Forty Thieves who operated out of the slums of south London.
Look What You Made Me Do
If someone crosses you, they don’t get away with it. You’re fiercely loyal and will go to extreme lengths to protect those you love. Laurie Petrou’s Sister of Mine is perfect for you; a sharp, disquieting thriller written in stunning, elegant prose with a devastating twist.
willow
If ‘willow‘ (especially the Witch version) is your fave, you’re intrigued by magic and seek out the light in the darkness. Perhaps you have a collection of crystals, and you often think about the state of our future. Your perfect VERVE Book is Stephanie Feldman’s Saturnalia, a story about environmental collapse and class warfare, trauma and rebirth, and magic – the extraordinary, ancient magic of alchemy and the ordinary, timeless magic of bravery and forgiveness.
By Sarah Stewart-Smith