Book news, reviews and recommendations
Published in the States under Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint, Alina Grabowski’s Women and Children First came billed as perfect for Elizabeth Strout fans but it was its structure and small-town setting that made me read it. Grabowski traces the lives of ten woman and girls before and after the death of a high school student […]
Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski: A small town tragedy Read More »
This second batch of August’s new fiction begins and ends with slight disappointments from two of my favourite authors. Heart, Be at Peace returns to the setting of Donal Ryan’s A Spinning Heart as the town struggles with the fallout from Augie Penrose’s lucrative drug business. Bobby becomes determined to do something about this menace,
Books to Look Out For in August 2024: Part Two Read More »
This is an unusual one for me as it’s been published for a few months now, but I enjoyed Douglas Bruton’s With or Without Angels so much that I was more than happy to accept his offer of a review copy. Hope Never Knew Horizon weaves together three reimagined stories: the exhibiting of the Wexford
Hope Never Knew Horizon by Douglas Bruton: ‘Just breathe’ Read More »
I was pitched Paddy Crewe’s True Love because of my liking for Donal Ryan. Ever sceptical of such comparisons, I checked out Goodreads to find two Ryan mentions then twigged that Crewe was the author of My Name is Yip which has been sitting on my TBR shelves for a while. It seemed a safe
True Love by Paddy Crewe: Love and healing Read More »
There’s a marriage theme running through the first part of August’s preview, not happy ones but those don’t tend to make for interesting fiction. I enjoyed Charlotte Mendelson’s The Exhibitionist so was delighted when Wife popped through my letterbox. Zoe and her supremely egotistical wife, Penny, have two daughters and a complicated set of co-parents,
Books to Look Out For in August 2024: Part One Read More »
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list,
Six Degrees of Separation – Kairos to The Night Guest Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. Tobias Hill’s Underground is an unusual one for me. It’s a thriller, not a genre I read much
Blasts from the Past: Underground by Tobias Hill (1999) Read More »
Perhaps because I’m in one, I’m attracted to fiction about long relationships which are as different from each other as the couples involved. I included a post in my Five Books I’ve Read series and could probably write several more on the theme. Acclaimed Swedish writer Moa Herngren’s The Divorce explores the end of a
The Divorce by Moa Herngren (transl. Alice Menzies): Two sides of the story Read More »
Part two of July’s paperback preview kicks off with two superb novels from Irish writers, both favourites from last year. Sheila Armstrong’s Falling Animals spans a year in which the authorities try to trace the identity of a corpse found on an Irish beach within sight of the shipwreck that caught fire a while ago,
Paperbacks to Look Out For in July 2024: Part Two Read More »
So many readers whose opinions I trust enjoyed Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things that I snapped up Sandwich which came with a feelgood billing and a Cape Cod setting, one of which I was sorely in need of after thinking too much about the state of the world, the other I find irresistible
Sandwich by Catherine Newman: Learning to let go Read More »
I was in two minds about reading Tom Lamont’s debut, Going Home. The synopsis made me think it might wander off into mawkishly sentimental territory but Lamont appeared on the Observer’s ’10 Best New Novelists of 2024’ list alongside Leo Vardiashvili whose Hard By a Great Forest I’d very much enjoyed so I decided to
Going Home by Tom Lamont: We are family Read More »