Some books whisper their brilliance. Others pour a gin, light a cigarette, and dare you to look away.

Tilda Battenberg Is Alive is very much the latter.

Tilda is unconventional, chaotic, and quite possibly unhinged — a woman living in a luxurious villa on the Italian Riviera, juggling two unwritten books, a suspiciously observant dog with an excellent alias, a Jamaican handyman, and a life quietly coming apart at the seams. Her daughter is absent, deadlines are ignored, reality blurs, and the gin bottles stack up as steadily as her denial.

What makes this novel such a pleasure is its confidence in its own disorder. The prose is fast, sharp, and unapologetic. Beneath the dark humour and chaos lies something unexpectedly tender — a portrait of a woman wrestling with grief, creativity, and identity while pretending (mostly to herself) that everything is under control.

Tilda’s voice is vivid and unreliable, the kind that pulls you along even when you know she’s about to make another questionable decision — especially then. The novel doesn’t ask permission to be strange, funny, or uncomfortable. It leans into those qualities and trusts the reader to keep up.

This is a story about unraveling, but also about survival. About how creativity, denial, love, and self-destruction often sit uncomfortably close together. And somehow, amid the mess, it finds moments of genuine warmth and humanity.

Dark, funny, and sharply observed, Tilda Battenberg Is Alive is a wild, intelligent ride — one I thoroughly enjoyed and would happily recommend to readers who appreciate flawed protagonists, bold voices, and stories that aren’t afraid to teeter at the edge.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read my Goodreads review here.