Cover image for Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison

Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison: ‘What are you anyway? Like a mixed breed? Like a dog?  

It’s become something of a tradition for Barack Obama to issue his summer reading list. It seems to have been extended to an end of year favourites now, too. I bet publishers’ hearts sing with joy if one of their titles appears on either, the next best thing to an Oprah recommendation. I won’t lie, […]

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Cover image for Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson: ‘Fact and fiction were now hopelessly entangled’

Jackson Brodie’s last outing came after a gap of nine long years so I was delighted when Death at the Sign of the Rook popped up on Netgalley a mere three years after Big Sky was published. For those who’ve yet to read Atkinson’s crime series or watch Jason Isacc’s brilliant portrayal of Jackson in

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Cover image for Liars by Sarah Manguso

Liars by Sarah Manguso: ‘I was in charge of everything and in control of nothing.’

I jumped at the chance to read Sarah Manguso’s new novel when it was pitched to me. Very Cold People was one of my books of 2022. Written in spare, crisp prose, it’s a bleak novella about an abusive childhood, extraordinarily powerful. Liars is the equally bleak story of a dysfunctional marriage told from the

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Cover image for The Echoes by Evie Wyld

The Echoes by Evie Wyld: ‘Distance. The great reliever and creator of pain.’ 

I was delighted when I spotted a new Evie Wyld on NetGalley but less so when I read the blurb which mentioned a ghost watching his girlfriend grieving his death, the kind of device which sets off alarm bells for me. Set across several timelines and two continents, The Echoes unfolds Hannah’s story, revealing what

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