reviews
We learn about war from an early age. We’re taught about it in our classrooms, read about it in the beautiful, haunting poetry of the war poets – Sassoon, Owen, Jarrell. Yet now social media and our global village world mean our access to war is pretty much immediate and, we are, in many … Continue readings
Tags : 80th anniversary Second World War, Alexander Baron, Anthony Quayle, D-Day, David Piper, Eight Hours from England, From the City From the Plough, IWM, Kathleen Hewitt, Plenty Under the Counter, Trial by Battle, war poets
Bestselling author Kathryn Hughes’ latest offering, Her Latest Promise, follows one woman’s quest to discover what happened to the mother who disappeared 40 years ago. Moving between England and Spain, it is set in dual timelines, a very popular literary device at the moment, and is told from multiple viewpoints. In the late 1970s, … Continue readings
Tags : bestsellers 2019, books set in Spain, dual timeline novels, first time in paperback 2019, Headline Review fiction, Her last promise, holiday reads 2019, Kathryn Hughes, Kathryn Hughes The Letter
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A ROLLICKING GREAT ADVENTURE, particularly one with rich historical and global context. The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan, veteran author Cynthia Jefferies’ first foray into adult fiction, is one such tale. Set just after the end of the English Civil War, the story opens with Christopher Morgan returning from exile in … Continue readings
Tags : adventure tales, Cynthia Jefferies, historical fiction, reading on location, The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan
‘There are people who think they understand a book just because they know how to read. I already told you that books are like mirrors: every person finds in them what they have in their own head. The problem is that you only discover what you have inside you when you read the right … Continue readings
Tags : El libro savage, HopeRoad Publications, Juan Villoro, Lawrence Schimel, magic realism, Mexican authors, Mexican Updike, The Wild One, Villoro, YA
Perhaps Richard was right. Perhaps this was a mistake. Not a starting over, nor a moving on, after all. He had called it a pilgrimage. More a hopeless, poisonous return, than a soul-saving reclamation. Like that elephant revisiting my loss until it overwhelms me, saps the life and energy from me.… The elephant returns … Continue readings
Tags : Adrian Harvey, Adrian Harvey author, Annayya, Being Someone, blog tour, book reviews, Urbane Publications, virtual book tour
Have you heard of kintsugi? Sydney says. Ila shakes her head. It’s the old Japanese art of repairing broken or chipped pottery. They use layers of lacquer, often with powdered gold. Instead of hiding the damage, it’s embraced. It’s treated as part of an object’s ongoing beauty. I love that, Ila says.” Rachel … Continue readings
Tags : Do Not Feed the Bear, editor's choice, Headline books, Rachel Elliott, Tinder Press
A fast-paced psychological thriller, Gone marks Leona Deakin’s thriller debut and introduces Dr Augusta Bloom and Marcus Jameson to audiences. People are disappearing and, in each case, a birthday card is left behind stating: ‘YOUR GIFT IS THE GAME. CARE TO PLAY’ – posing the question are the victims really victims or have … Continue readings
Tags : Augusta Bloom, Black Swan, Bloom and Jameson 1, Dr Augusta Bloom, Gone, Leona Deakin, psychological crime
‘Very ancient buildings have a way of talking to you … So many secrets waiting to be uncovered.’ ‘I’ve always thought that, too,’ I say. ‘Actually, I’ve always talked to Ponden since I was little; it seems impolite not to.’ ” – Tru Heaton Jones discussing Ponden Hall with Marcus Ellis Rowan … Continue readings
Tags : Brontes, Gothic literature, the Gytrash, the Heaton family, Wuthering Heights, Yorkshire moors
Erin Kinsley’s Found centres on every parent’s nightmare, the abduction of an eleven-year-old boy from a bus stop on his way back home from school. The book details the devastating impact on Evan’s immediate family and the best friend who had just been with him and the reality of an over-subscribed police force, crying … Continue readings
Tags : anne cater, book reviews, chiild abduction, chiildren abducted found, child abduction, child abuse, crime fiction, DI Naylor, Erin Kinsley, Found, Headline books, missing children, paedophiles, police procedurals, The Literary Lounge, The Literary Shed
We’re great lovers of reading books with strong locations. London has particular resonance for us as it’s our home, and so we probably would have liked Phoebe Locke’s The July Girls for its setting alone. The city informs the book, the locations – Brixton, north London or elsewhere – used to frame the plot. … Continue readings
Tags : 7 July 2005, 7/7, 9/11, book reviews, criminology, London bombings 7 Juy 2005, London-based novels, Magpie, Phoebe Locke, serial killlers, The July Girls, The Literary Lounge, women crime-fiction novelists
There’s a point early on in Paul Burston’s The Closer I Get when protagonist Tom goes to the police to report that he’s being harassed. The female detective who interviews him is astonished to hear that he’s been stalked for about a year and not reported it. Why?, she asks. I was embarrassed, he … Continue readings
Early on in Is Monogamy Dead?, comedian Rosie Wilby explains that ‘monogamy’ originates from the Greek words monos gamos, meaning ‘one marriage for life’. The book that follows is an honest, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant exploration of a concept which, for many, seems outdated, if not unworkable in a twenty-first century framework. Aged 40, … Continue readings
Tags : Accent Press, Accent Press non-fiction, Curious Arts Festival 2019, humour, Is Monogamy Dead?, love army, monogamy, polyamory, Port Eliot Festival 2019, relationship books, Rosie Wilby, Rosie Wilby comedian, Rosie Wilby Womans Hour, self-help, Wilderness Festival 2019, Womans Hour
Drawing on the letters and diaries of her parents, Debbie Rix’s new novel, The Secret Letter, follows English Imogen and German Magda as they deal with the heartache and terror of living in countries impacted by the Second World War. Early in the war, Imogen is evacuated to the Lake District away from her … Continue readings
Tags : Bookouture, British women writers, contemporary historical fiction, contemporary literature, Debbie Rix, digital books, historical fiction, Hitler Youth, resistance, Second World War, Second World War literature, The Secret Letter, The Silent Letter, war books, White Rose, White Rose movement
I love it when I’m introduced to writers I’ve never read before, especially when I know they’re going to be new friends. That’s the case with Joseph Knox. The Sleepwalker, which is published this month by Doubleday, is the third outing for Detective Aidan Waits and yet it’s my introduction to him. I really … Continue readings
Tags : Aidan Waits, Aidan Waits 3, British crime fiction, British noir, Doubleday, Joseph Knox, Manchester noir, The Sleepwalker
Longlisted for the Women’s Prize 2019, Yvonne Battle-Felton’s novel Remembered is a book of many stories. In 1910 Philadelphia, central character Spring sits by the hospital bed of her dying son. Edmund is accused of driving a streetcar into a ‘no coloreds’ department store. As Spring watches him, the ghost of her dead … Continue readings
Tags : African American women writers, African American writers, BAME, Battle-Felton, black women writers, dialogue books, Long-listed Women's Prize, Remembered, slave history, slave writing, Women's Prize 2019, Yvonne Battle-Felton