Book news, reviews and recommendations
The premise of Caroline O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident reminded me of Belinda McKeon’s Tender which I loved but was stunned to find I’d reviewed back in 2015. The novels turned out to have little in common besides being written by Irish women about the relationship between a young straight woman and her gay male friend. …
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue: Paging Netflix 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. The Orchard on Fire was the first novel I read by Shena Mackay and I loved it. Childhood …
Blasts from the Past: The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay (1995) Read More »
I started The Glass Ocean on Sunday evening. Twenty pages in and nothing had stuck. It seemed a little disjointed somehow; snippets of glittering prose shone out but I couldn’t seem to get a purchase on it. Monday afternoon, after a lovely Bank Holiday walk through woods near Iford Manor – too soon for tea, …
The Glass Ocean by Lori Baker: Garlanded with well deserved praise Read More »
It took me a little while to get into The Small Hours – its style seemed a little brittle and the language almost old fashioned – but after a chapter or so it became clear that this was precisely the right tone for Harriet who narrates the novel in an internal dialogue which is at …