reviews
‘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
We are, as we’ve said before, partial to a good piece of historical fiction and Ellen Alpsten’s debut novel, Tsarina, is a veritable beast of a book. Told in the first person, it charts the rise of Catherine I, second wife of Peter the Great, from her humble beginnings as peasant girl Marta … Continue readings
Tags : Catherine I, Catherine I of Russia, eighteenth-century Russia, historical fiction, Peter the Great's second wife, Russian empress, Russian imperial history, Russian tsarinas, Tsarina, Tsars and tsarinas
Caroline Hulse’s latest book, Like A House on Fire, is an incisive, incredibly funny study of how families behave in crisis. Told from multiple perspectives, the book revolves around a family party, a wedding anniversary with a murder–mystery theme, where pretty much every person has a secret which he or she is guarding, … Continue readings
Tags : Caroline Hulse, family dynamics, Fleabag, Like A House on Fire, literary fiction, Mike Leigh, new fiction
We’re huge Nora Roberts’ fans and are slightly ashamed to admit we came late to the table to her alter ego JD Robb and the fabulous Eve Dallas–Roarke futuristic crime series. Once we discovered them, we rushed through them as we’re also great crime-fiction lovers. Golden in Death, the latest – and fiftieth, fiftieth … Continue readings
Tags : crime fiction, Dallas–Roarke, Eve Dallas, futuristic crime, In Death series, JD Robb, Nora Roberts, Nora Roberts series, Roarke, romantic-suspense, suspense
Every year I get myself a present from my late mama. Something that’s meaningful, occasionally life changing, like the flat I bought and moved into on my birthday four years ago. Mostly though it’s a set of charcoals or a plant. This year it’s Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the … Continue readings
Tags : Antoine de Saint-Exupery, charlie mackesy, Ebury Books, inspirational books, Penguin Books, The boy the mole the fox and the horse, the little prince
Jamie Fewery’s new book The Way Back, published by Orion, explores the rather complex subject of family. The Cadogans, his protagonists, open the novel as estranged siblings brought together by the demise of their father. Gerry Cadogan, directing his children even from beyond the grave, forces Patrick, Kirsty and Jessica on a road trip to … Continue readings
Tags : Alex Layt, contemporary fiction, grief, Jamie Fewery, Orion, Scotland roadtrip, The Way Back
Melanie Blake’s The Thunder Girls is a good old-fashioned blockbuster in the vein of the late greats, Jacqueline Susann, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, Jilly Cooper. So, what’s not to love, really? Centering around the proposed reunion of four members of an 80s’ girl band, Chrissie, Roxanne, Anita and Carly, thirty years after they … Continue readings
Tags : 80s' girl bands, band reunions, blockbusters, eighties' girl bands, Jackie Collins, Jacqueline Susann, Jilly Cooper, Melanie Blake, Pan Books, Shirley Conran, The Thunder Girls
Journalist Liz Jones ran a campaign to ban skinny models in her former incarnation as editor-in-chief of influential Marie Claire, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the premise of her rather entertaining debut novel, 8 ½ Stone, centres around weight and the quest for happiness. Jones creates a familiar beast in protagonist Pam, … Continue readings
Tags : 81/2 Stone, chick lit, Eight-and-a-half-stone, humour fiction, Liz Jones, Liz Jones campaign against skinny models, Liz Jones editor-in-chief Marie Claire, Mail newsgroup, Marie Claire, Matthew James Publishing, weighty matters
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