Book news, reviews and recommendations
I couldn’t resist Thirst Trap given how many debuts from young Irish women have hit the spot for me in recent years. Gráinne O’Hare’s novel is about three friends on the cusp of thirty living in the same house they shared with a fourth, killed in a car accident a year before. ‘Lidl,’ Cate said, almost […]
Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare: Arrested development Read More »
Oliver Lovrenski’s Back in the Day topped the bestseller lists in Norway for months, winning the country’s prestigious Bookseller Prize when Lovrenski was just nineteen. Set in Oslo, his episodic, fragmented novel follows four boys through their school days onto the streets into a life that will likely lead to an early death. argan was
I remember Clare Sestanovich’s short story collection, Objects of Desire, being much praised when it was published which is what made me want to read her first novel, Ask Me Again. It begins with sixteen-year-old Eva meeting James in a Brooklyn hospital waiting room where her parents are anxiously sitting at her comatose grandmother’s bedside,
Ask Me Again by Clare Sestanovich: More questions than answers Read More »
I’ve had mixed experiences with Tessa Hadley’s novels. I enjoyed Late in the Day but others I’ve read have left little impression on me. I’ve often thought her short fiction would suit me better so put up my hand for The Party. Hadley’s written many short stories, but this is her first novella which sees
The Party by Tessa Hadley: Coming of age in post-war Britain Read More »
I’d somehow got it into my head that Khashayar J. Khabushani was a poet which was part of the attraction of his debut, I Will Greet the Sun Again, but it turns out that its title is a quote from a poem by Forugh Farrokhzad, one of Iran’s foremost female poets, whose work was banned
I Will Greet the Sun Again by Khashayar J. Khabushani: Finding your own way Read More »
Having had such a brilliant year reading Irish women writers in 2022, I’ve had my eye out for more this year which is what drew me to Chloe Michelle Howarth’s debut, Sunburn. Set in rural Ireland in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, it’s a queer coming-of-age story which follows Lucy, long since assumed to be on
I’d enjoyed both Harmless Like You and Starling Days so much that I needed no persuasion to pick up Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s The Sleep Watcher which follows a young woman looking back to the summer in which she discovered that her beloved father was not the man she thought he was. The thing about parents
The Sleep Watcher by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Seeing things as they are Read More »
I ended my review of Vendela Vida’s The Diver’s Clothes Lie Entry back in 2015, pleased to find she had a backlist to explore. Needless to say, too many bright, shiny new books got in the way so I was delighted when We Run the Tides arrived through the letterbox. Set in a wealthy San
We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida: Beauty and truth, or the lack of it Read More »
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,
Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey: Growing pains Read More »
Someone at Oneworld has a very sharp editorial eye, or maybe there’s a whole team of them. They managed to bag both the last two Man Booker Prizes, first with Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings then Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. They also published Sweetbitter, one of my favourites from 2016, and The
Another Brooklyn by Jaqueline Woodson: Girls growing up in the ’70s Read More »