Cover image for Almost Life by Karen Millwood Hargrave

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: ‘There is nothing we could not do together’  

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I’d not read either of Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s previous novels, drawn to Almost Life by the blurb’s comparison with David Nicholls’s One Day half expecting to be disappointed. Spanning thirty-five years, it follows Laure and Erica who meet one summer morning in 1978 on the steps of Sacré Coeur when Erica smiles at Laure after […]

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Cover image for A Far-flung World by M K Stedman

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman: ‘Guard your secrets well – that’s my advice. Forget they even exist.’  

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Those of you with long memories might recall M. L. Stedman’s debut, The Light Between Oceans, published in the UK back in 2012. I loved it which made me keen to read her new one, A Far-flung Life. Largely set in the 1950s and ‘60s on a sheep station in Western Australia, it follows the

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Cover image for A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia: ‘There are many different ways to have an affair.’

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I’d not come across Stephanie Sy-Quia before a proof of A Private Man turned up. She’s an award-wining poet which predisposed me towards reading it. Like many debut novelists, Sy-Quia draws on her family history and, as the granddaughter of a Catholic priest, hers is a fascinating one. A Private Man tells the story of

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Laws of Love and Lodd by Debra Curtis

Laws of Love and Logic by Debra Curtis: ‘Guilt is both long and cruel’

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I dithered over Debra Curtis’s Laws of Love and Logic which sounded from the blurb as if it might be a straightforward tragic love story. There was also a worrying degree of brouhaha around it but I decided to take the plunge. Spanning three decades, beginning in the 1976, Curtis’s debut follows Lily, the elder

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Cover image for How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson

A Snapshot of My Reading #12

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February’s snapshot includes a novel I’m crossing my fingers for, a short story collection from a favourite author and a well-known critic’s very personal piece art history.  The novel I’m reading is Rupert Thomson’s How to Make a Bomb which begins with an academic returning from a conference, experiencing what may be a breakdown. I’ve

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