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Hannah Begbie’s Blurred Lines is one of those books that really does spark debate. The premise is very much of the time, building on the he said–she said debate, the issue of consent and the very difficult but important subject of sexual violence. In Begbie’s book, the main protagonist Becky has the ultimate … Continue readings
Tags : #metoo, Blurred Lines, CWA, domestic suspense, Hannah Begbie, HarperCollins, sexual violence
Vintage Crime, edited by novelist Martin Edwards, raids the Crime Writers Association (CWA) archives to bring together some of the best short stories written in the genre, since the organisation was founded in 1953. Edwards, CWA archivist and former chair, has selected work which shows the evolution of crime-fiction writing over almost seventy … Continue readings
Tags : anne cater, crime fiction anthology, crime fiction short story anthology, CWA, CWA archive, CWA Vintage Crime, Flame Tree Press, Martin Edwards, Random Things Tours, short story, Vintage Crime
Emmie Blue and Luke Moreau find each other under the strangest of circumstances, when they’re both sixteen, in Lia Louis’ Dear Emmie Blue. Luke discovers a balloon in Boulogne-sur-Mer, which Emmie released in Ramsgate, containing a secret. Fast-forward fourteen years and the two are best friends. When Luke tells Emmie he has something … Continue readings
Tags : Britgirl romance, Dear Emmie Blue, Emmie Blue, Lia Louis, My best friend's wedding, red balloon, romantic comedy, Romantic Novelists Association, romcom, RWA, Trapeze
Eva Mozes Kor’s The Twins of Auschwitz is an extraordinary piece of memoir. Aged ten, Romanian Jews Eva and her sister, Miriam, survived the gas chambers because of one small genetic factor: they were twins. Selected to be part of Dr Josef Mengele’s scientific experiments, Eva and Miriam were ripped from their mother’s … Continue readings
Tags : angel of death, Auschwitz, Dr Josef Mengele, Eva Mozes Kor, forgiveness, Jewish studies, Mengele's twins, Montoray, Nazi concentration camps, The Twins of Auschwitz, war memoir
Shed No Tears, Caz Frear’s latest novel, is our first foray into the world of DC Cat Kinsella. The third in the series featuring the detective, this book can also be read as a standalone. When the remains of a young woman are discovered in Cambridgeshire, Cat is assigned the case, along with … Continue readings
In How To Be Nowhere, Tim MacGabhann’s new novel, published by W&N this month, we catch up with Irish journalist and recovering addict Andrew, introduced to us in the author’s debut work. This Andrew is a different man to the protagonist of Call Him Mine. He’s adjusting to life, sober, with a new … Continue readings
Tags : action thriller, Call Him Mine, Central American crime, Crime Writers Association, How to be nowhere, Mexican thrillers, Tim MacGabhann
Our first foray into international best-selling novelist Michel Bussi’s work, Never Forget, published in the UK by W&N, doesn’t disappoint. Literary crime at its best, it opens with a report from a lieutenant of the National Gendarmerie requesting help with an investigation, after a rockfall west of Yport in Normandy reveals the skeletons of three … Continue readings
‘In a world that is increasingly dark and aggressive, I think making beauty is an act of rebellion and that’s what I’m trying to do really,’ says author and illustrator Jackie Morris of The Unwindings. And she does it most successfully in this gorgeously produced book. A pillow book, compact enough to be … Continue readings
Tags : Jackie Morris illustration, Jackie Morris The Lost Words, Jackie Norris, Robert Macfarlane Jackie Morris, The Unwinding, Unbound Books
‘Where does a mistake begin?’ Juliet Partlow asks at the beginning of Amity Gaige’s novel, Sea Wife. ‘… Did my mistake begin with the boat? Or my marriage itself?’ And from that very first page, we know that something terrible has happened. The Partlows are a normal couple, living in the suburbs, with their … Continue readings
Tags : Amity Gaige, contemporary fiction, Fleet, literary fiction, Little Brown fiction, Sea Wife
When I first heard the premise for Amanda Craig’s new novel, The Golden Rule, I was intrigued. Two women meet on a train, talk and agree to kill each other’s husbands. It’s Strangers on the Train revisited surely? As a huge Hitchcock and Highsmith fan that’s wonderful. It’s even more so to discover the … Continue readings
Tags : Amanda Craig, books set in Cornwall, Hitchcock, literary crime, Little Brown, Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train, The Golden Rule
From the very page, A J Park’s The First Lie captures our attention. It’s highly readable, fast-paced, with an interesting premise: how far would you go to protect the people and things most important to you? When barrister Paul Reeve comes home after a particularly gruelling day, he finds a dead body draped over … Continue readings
Tags : AJ Park, Crime Writers Association, legal drama, Orion Crime, psychological crime, The fIrst lie
What Doesn’t Kill You, fifteen essays by a diverse group of commentators, writers, actors, journalists, explorers, among them, is an insightful look at the beauty of the human spirit. It’s often not an easy read, but it is a necessary one, and there are some lovely pieces, beautifully penned, poignant, moving. Ones that … Continue readings
Tags : abuse, adversity, alcholism, anxiety, body image, depression, Elitsa Dermendzhiyska, essay collection, grief, mental health, survival, Unbound, What doesn't kill us
I was looking at the book jacket of Damian Barr’s You Will Be Safe Here a few days back, when I reread it, and was struck by how many adjectives have been applied to it by so many great writers, so you’ll forgive me if I repeat some of them in the course of … Continue readings
Tags : Bloomsbury, Boer War, British concentration camps, Damian Barr, military schools, modern literature, Scottish writing, South Africa, South African Boer War, You Will Be Safe Here
There’s a great sense of nostalgia and loss pervading Tara Gould’s short story, The Haunting of Strawberry Water, published by Myriad Editions as a small format paperback. Paying more than a nod to the Gothic tradition, from the very first words, we are made aware of the narrator’s longing for the mother she … Continue readings
Tags : book reviews, bookstagram, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gothic, Gothic writing, Henry James, modern Gothic, Myriad Editions, Short stories, Tara Gould, The Haunting of Strawberry Water, The Innocents, The Literary Lounge, The Yellow Wallpaper, Virginia Woolf
The Split, best-selling author Sharon (SJ) Bolton’s new novel, features one of the best of crime-fiction locations, the island of South Georgia, the Antarctic, several hundred miles from the Falkland Islands, where protagonist Dr Felicity Lloyd discovers that sometimes it doesn’t matter how far you run, you just can’t hide. Especially from psycho … Continue readings
Tags : Antartica, armchair travel, crime fiction, psychological crime fiction, Sharon Bolton, SJ Bolton, South Georgia, the Antartic, The Split