Book news, reviews and recommendations
I was very taken with Nightshift’s premise of an obsessive relationship between two women set against a backdrop of nocturnal London when I spotted it on Twitter and put up my hand for a proof. Kiare Ladner’s debut follows Meggie’s attempt to exorcise Sabine’s influence, two decades after they last saw each other. Their toxic […]
Nightshift by Kiare Ladner: A disquieting tale of seduction and obsession Read More »
Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy has been on my TBR list for as long as it’s been published. No idea why I haven’t got around to buying a copy but when I spotted Asylum Road in the publishing schedules I put my hand up, attracted partly by the multitude of glowing puffs from the likes of Megan
Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic: ‘Noli me tangere’ Read More »
I’d already spotted Gemma Reeves’ Victoria Park in the publishing schedules before I was offered it for review. The first copy failed to materialise, caught up in the Covid/Christmas Royal Mail vortex that hit the headlines in December, but I’m pleased to say the second arrived before I had to resort to NetGalley, not my
Victoria Park by Gemma Reeves: Everybody needs good neighbours 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. I remember being pitched Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl back in 2005 when I was the reviews editor
Blasts from the Past: The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi (2005) Read More »
Two years ago, looking for something easy to read after a tree root tripped me up landing me with a nasty headache, I picked up Anne Youngson’s first novel, Meet Me at the Museum, having previously dismissed it thinking it looked too schmaltzy for me. It turned out to be one of the best books
Three Women and a Boat by Anne Youngson: The kindness of strangers Read More »
This is the second novel in as many months I’ve read about a couple in the aftermath of infidelity. Slightly disconcertingly both husbands were called Jake but although Amanda Craig’s The Golden Rule and Megan Hunter’s The Harpy share some similar themes, stylistically they couldn’t be more different. Since the superb The End We Start
The Harpy by Megan Hunter: Righteous anger 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. Wise Children is my favourite Angela Carter novel. Stuffed full of Shakespearean references and written in language which
Blasts from the Past: Wise Children by Angela Carter (1991) Read More »
Carys Davies’ name will be known to many readers, I’m sure. Her elegantly slim debut, West, was much acclaimed when it was published in 2018. The story of a man so obsessed by reports of ancient bones found in a Kentucky swamp that he leaves his young daughter to fend for herself, it’s very different
The Mission House by Carys Davies: ‘Both strange and familiar’ Read More »
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
The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams: ’The action of telling lies in an artful way’ Read More »
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
The Group by Lara Feigel: A twentieth-century classic reprised Read More »
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
The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig: ‘Do as you would be done by’ Read More »