Cover image for American Fantasy by Emma Straub

American Fantasy by Emma Straub: ‘Who’s ready for the best weekend of their lives?’  

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Emma Straub writes reliably enjoyable fiction, tending more towards the commercial than the literary. I’ve read most of her novels but was surprised to find I’d only reviewed The Vacationers back in the early days of the blog. American Fantasy has an unusual premise: a full-on nostalgia cruise for over two thousand mostly female fans […]

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Cover image for Drayton and Mackenzie by Alexander Starrit

Paperbacks to Look Out For in June 2026: Part Two

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Part two of June’s paperback preview begins with one of my 2025 favourites. Opening in the early 2000s, Alexander Starritt’s Drayton and Mackenzie follows two very different men. Driven and intensely competitive, even with himself, James is the affable, indolent Roland’s antithesis. He’s a rising star with McKinsey’s consultancy, set on becoming their youngest partner;

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Cover image for Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson

Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson: An evocative tale of rural Italy

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Rupert Thomson’s one of those authors who delivers well turned out, interesting fiction with little brouhaha. His work ranges widely from the early days of Soft!, a satire on the advertising world, to Secrecy, set in the Medici court of seventeenth-century Florence. Dark is the Morning takes us to a small town in Abruzzo where

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Cover image for The Last Movent by Robert Seethaler

The Last Movement by Robert Seethaler (transl. Charlotte Collins): ‘Everything is either work or destiny’  

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I’m not a Mahler fan but put up my hand as soon as I spotted Robert Seethaler’s brief novella, The Last Movement, which sees the composer on his last transatlantic voyage to Europe, a few months before his death. I’ve read all four of Seethaler’s translated novels, beginning with A Whole Life over a decade

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Cover image for Ladies' Lunch by Lore Segal

A Snapshot of My Reading #15

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This month’s snapshot includes one for ardent David Bowie fans, a pandemic novel but don’t let that put you off, and a collection of short stories which begins with a brief novella set in Manhattan. The short story collection I’m reading is Lore Segal’s Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories of which I’ve only read the titular

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Cover image for The Things We Never Say

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: ‘No one is superior to anyone else in this world’  

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As Elizabeth Strout fans will already know, The Things We Never Say is a standalone novel set in a small Massachusetts town rather than Crosby, Maine with which we’ve become so familiar. Spanning several years either side of the 2024 presidential election, it follows Artie Dam, a popular high school history teacher whose life is

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The Secret Lives of Murderers' Lives by Elizabeth Arnott

The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott: ‘She may be pretty, but pretty doesn’t keep you alive’  

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Elizabeth Arnott’s The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives caught my eye on NetGalley with its arresting cover, but it was its 1960s California setting that swung it for me together with a mention of Mad Men in the blurb. It has an interesting premise, too: three women, all once married to convicted serial killers, are

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