Fiction Reviews Archives - Page 58 of 123

Cover image for The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (transl. Alison Menzies): What Larkin said

31 July 2020 / 6 Comments

Two things drew me to Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Family Clause: I’d enjoyed his previous novel, Everything I Don’t Remember, back in 2016, and the blurb sounded tempting with its promise of chaotic and discordant family life. I’d been expecting a fairly straightforward linear narrative but that’s not Khemiri’s style. This everyday tale of a

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Cover image for The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams: ’The action of telling lies in an artful way’

29 July 2020 / 29 Comments

I remember Eley Williams’ collection of short stories, Attrib, being garlanded with praise from all sorts of people whose opinions I trust back in 2017 when it was published. I’ve no idea why I didn’t get around to reading it, being well over my short story aversion by then, particularly as its themes seem to

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Scabby Queen by Kirstin Innes: Setting the world on fire

24 July 2020 / 12 Comments

I’d heard good things about Fishnet, Kirstin Innes’ first novel, but hadn’t yet got around to reading it when Scabby Queen popped up in my Twitter timeline adorned with a puff from Janice Galloway whose The Trick Is to Keep Breathing and Jellyfish I loved. Innes’ second novel is the story of Clio Campbell, political

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Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey: Growing pains

17 July 2020 / 14 Comments

It was Cathy at 746 Books who first alerted me to Susannah Dickey’s debut. Cathy’s reliably impeccable taste meant Tennis Lessons went straight on my ever lengthening wishlist. Dickey’s also a poet, giving me another reason to read it. Poets so often write good fiction. From the blurb, I thought it would be a straightforward,

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Cover image for Belladona by Anbara Salam

Belladonna by Anbara Salam: ‘Sometimes love isn’t enough’

15 July 2020 / 14 Comments

I’m a sucker for covers that fit their books well. When I spotted Anbara Salam’s Belladonna on Twitter, it was that strikingly evocative jacket that snagged my interest although I was concerned it might be a wee bit fluffy. While it’s certainly an easy read, fluffy’s not the word for this coming-of-age novel, set in

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Cover image for The Group by Lara feigel

The Group by Lara Feigel: A twentieth-century classic reprised

10 July 2020 / 24 Comments

I read Mary McCarthy’s The Group many years ago as a teenager when it was already acclaimed as a classic. In it eight women who met as students in the ‘30s form the titular group whose intimate lives and friendship the novel follows. Not my generation at all, but I was spellbound by it and

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Cover image for Artifact by Arlene Heyman

Artifact by Arlene Heyman: ‘Too smart for a girl’

8 July 2020 / 15 Comments

I know very few women scientists. Well to be honest, just two and one of those is a virtual friend met through blogging. Being pigeonholed as an arts person early on no doubt contributed to that but the fact is there are still far more male scientists than women. Arlene Heyman’s debut novel, Artifact, follows

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Cover image: The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott: Dystopia, hope and redemption

3 July 2020 / 6 Comments

Towards the end of 2018 I was sent a review copy of a book that I wasn’t at all sure about. It looked a little too wacky for my taste but the publisher was a favourite of mine so I decided to give it a go. Not only did Robbie Arnott’s Flames end up on

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The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig: ‘Do as you would be done by’

1 July 2020 / 18 Comments

Amanda Craig’s The Golden Rule is the latest in a series of loosely interconnected novels which explore the state of my particular nation. I’m a sucker for this kind of fiction and have enjoyed several of Craig’s contributions to it including The Lie of the Land, a Brexit novel that, for me, was very much

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Cover image - The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes: Brotherly love, or the lack of it

26 June 2020 / 6 Comments

Caoilinn Hughes’ debut, The Orchid and the Wasp, made a quite a splash in the literary pool when it was published back in 2018. I started it but couldn’t get on with the style so was in two minds whether to read The Wild Laughter when it turned up but Cathy at 746 Books rated

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Cover image for Fracture by Andrés Neuman

Fracture by Andrés Neuman (transl. Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia: ’The art of mending cracks without secrecy’

24 June 2020 / 6 Comments

Part of my attraction to Fracture was its jacket which seemed to fit the title so beautifully. Andrés Neuman’s novel is largely set in Japan and, thanks to BBC4’s excellent series of documentaries about Japanese culture, I knew about the practice of kintsugi: repairing broken porcelain emphasising the cracks rather than disguising them as we

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