Harriet Evans and Laura Barnett

It's our 150th episode!!! Can you believe it? No, we can't either...

...and celebrating our big birthday are Harriet Evans and Laura Barnett, who join Joe for a brilliant bit of Booking Off.

Sadly - there's no cake or party poppers - thanks to the terrible Thameslink service which meant Joe couldn't get to the shops in time, but there's still a lot of great book chat!

Harrie and Laura discuss their brilliant new novels, give us some fab book recommendations - and - there's also a surprise appearance from Harriet Harman.

THE BOOK OFF

'Commonwealth' by Ann Patchett

VS

'Expectation' by Anna Hope

And here's a little more info on our guests' new books!

The Treasures

Every family has a story to tell. Alice and Tom's begins here . . .

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Alice Jansen collects her treasures – the keepsakes, figurines and mementoes that help her make sense of her fragile family. But the next day her heart is broken, and the final treasure, a gift from her father, is lost. Two years later, Alice answers a phone call from a stranger and runs away to New York, and tries to forget her last golden summer at the orchard on the banks of the Hudson.

Tom Raven can’t understand why he keeps losing so many of the things and people that really matter to him, but he knows for certain that something important is missing from his life. One day, he remembers a forgotten letter and makes a phone call, then leaves Sevenstones, the only place that feels like home, for a strange city.

Births, Deaths And Marriages

Zoe, Al, Rachel, Rob, Yas and Indie. Six friends who were inseparable at university, who have all had their secret or not so secret passions for each other, their hopes and fears.

Over the years, they have gone their separate ways. Rob is a history teacher, with a string of broken relationships behind him. Yas is a surgeon and very much her own woman. Indie is married and a successful coffee entrepreneur. Rachel is a stay at home mum with two children. Al, widowed young, is about to take over his father's funeral business.

When Rob's engagement party throws the gang together once more, some passions are reignited, old connections and resentments resurface. Over the next twelve months, there will, among the friends, be a birth, a marriage, and a death – but whose?

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