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Category: Book Reviews
When Will There Be Good News, Kate Atkinson
Oh Kate Atkinson! The master of literary coincidence! There is something about Atkinson: I adore her writing style and love her books - both the very literary crime fiction of ex-policeman Jackson Brodie, and the more explicitly literary novels like Life After Life - but they need time to digest and ruminate on. And clearly… Continue reading When Will There Be Good News, Kate Atkinson
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The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, Abbi Waxman
There are people who have no time for books. Nina had met those people; usually they came into the bookstore to ask for directions and would then look about confusedly when they realized they were surrounded by these strange paper oblongs. Maybe they had rich fantasy lives, or maybe they were raised by starfish who had no access to dry printed material, who knows, but Nina judged them and felt guilty for doing so.
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Memories
I normally try to keep my life into compartments: home life, work life, blogging... but Friday was the funeral of my grandmother, who died back on 20th January. At one level, when thinking abstractly, I absolutely recognise that the last twelve months were not easy for her: forced to leave her home into a carehome,… Continue reading Memories
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Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
Some books you pick up, thinking What is all the fuss about, then? It’s a name that you spot time and time again on Blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram… an author that you have become aware of… a hype and chatter that has crossed your path. And so often, it is disappointing: you often read that hyped… Continue reading Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
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Death in her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh
“Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.”
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The Benefit of Hindsight, Susan Hill
As a series continues, they become increasingly difficult to review, don't you find? All the witty and intelligent comments you can think of you have used before! So, looking at The Benefit of Hindsight, have we got all the hallmarks of a Simon Serrailler novel? Has Lafferton been struck by a series of horrific crimes?… Continue reading The Benefit of Hindsight, Susan Hill
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Highfire, Eoin Colfer
The story of the last dragon who has survived by hiding in the Louisiana swamps with the alligators. He passes his day with cable TV and vodka martinis until his peace is destroyed by a tearaway Cajun boy and a crooked constable who is determined to kill them both.
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Pet, Akwaeke Emezi
"Angels could look like many things." So can monsters.
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Quichotte, Salman Rushdie
This is the sort of novel I feel the need to reach for metaphor to describe, tired and cliched metaphors at that: it is a roller coaster, a kaleidoscope, a hall of mirrors, shifting sands.... It is dazzling - but being dazzled is not always the most comfortable experience!
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Blood Wedding, Pierre Lemaitre
One problem I have - and it perhaps says more about me than anything else! - is that I tend to rely on familiar authors so in crime I have been reliant on Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series, Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series, Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels and a few others: Anthony Horowitz,… Continue reading Blood Wedding, Pierre Lemaitre
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Book Review: Starve Acre, Andrew Michael Hurley
Wow! This was deliciously dark and disturbing! An ideal creepy read for that strange, unsettling time between Christmas and the New Year, where no one quite knows what day of the week it is or how long they have left on holiday! I'd listened to The Loney by Hurley as an audiobook a little while… Continue reading Book Review: Starve Acre, Andrew Michael Hurley
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The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
It has been an age since I read The Night Circus - so long ago that this blog did not exist - but I remember it as ephemeral, atmospheric, beautiful and moving. So the news this year that Morgenstern was bringing out another novel was huge - huge! So it was downloaded on the day… Continue reading The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
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Blackberry and Wild Rose, Sonia Velton
There is nothing like a rich and sumptuous historical novel and the cover of Velton's Blackberry and Wild Rose was so beautiful I had high high hopes. Possibly too high. The novel revolves around two women in eighteenth century London, a setting that I am not familiar with: the sixteenth century has been such a… Continue reading Blackberry and Wild Rose, Sonia Velton
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Deeplight, Frances Hardinge
Some writers just blow you away. The depth of their world-building, the vividness and humanity of their characters, the beauty of their language, the thoughtfulness - the philosophy - of their concept. Hardinge is definitely one of these writers. I was a little concerned picking up Deeplight, however much I adore Hardinge because her most… Continue reading Deeplight, Frances Hardinge
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The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman
Oh Lyra Belacqua, Lyra Silvertongue. I devoured the original trilogy of your journeys to the North. Bolvangar, Svalbad, Iorek Byrnison, The World of the Dead. I adored the Miltonic and Blakean echoes. Fell in love with the mercurial, quick witted, innocent girl. Loved the world created by Pullman, the familiarity of it, the uncanniness, the… Continue reading The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman
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Frankissstein, Jeanette Winterson
What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
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10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak
I have sat on this book for a while since finishing reading it - partially as a result of workload; mainly because it, like The Heart's Invisible Furies and many others, is a book that deserved some time to settle and be absorbed before launching into a review. The novel revolves around a single character,… Continue reading 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak
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The Mitford Scandal, Jessica Fellowes
I love the covers of this series of novels by Jessica Fellowes! The blue here is gorgeous! All art deco, beautiful, vibrant. Not unlike the eponymous Mitford sisters around whom the novels revolve. This is the third outing for Louisa Cannon, previously nursery nurse to the younger Mitford sisters and friend to Nancy Mitford in… Continue reading The Mitford Scandal, Jessica Fellowes
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The Anarchists’ Club, Alex Reeve
In the spirit of anarchy, I chose to read this book - the second of the Leo Stanhope series - without having read the first. I know! ANARCHY starts from this! Being honest, I don't think it mattered a jot: Reeve introduces his transgender Victorian protagonist essentially from scratch with enough - possibly too much… Continue reading The Anarchists’ Club, Alex Reeve
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The Lying Room, Nicci French
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher, Simon and Schuster, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I am new to this NetGalley and ARC business. A newbie, a greenback, a novice. I've received perhaps half a dozen ARCs in total, which is not many. Principally this is because I've… Continue reading The Lying Room, Nicci French
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The Trespasser, Tana French
I'd been saving this one up for the summer holidays when I have time to indulge it, not sneaking a half-hour read in late at night when I should be sleeping. I also wanted to head back to the beginning of the series, having started with The Secret Place, and catch up chronologically. And I… Continue reading The Trespasser, Tana French
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The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy
Disclaimer: Received from NetGalley and the publisher, Penguin, in exchange for an honest review. There are some novels which flow fluidly like a river. Others are curved and twisted. Others are very linear taking a route from inciting incident to resolution without a deviation. Others are shaped like a tree, branching and dividing but never… Continue reading The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy
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One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
Read with caution: Cleaning companies may never be the same again! I've come to Kate Atkinson late in her career: I can recall surprisingly vividly my mother's water damaged, crinkly paper copy of Behind the Scenes at the Museum teetering on the side of the bath - an avocado kitsch bath - from my childhood… Continue reading One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
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Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver
This was my first Paver read having heard some good things about her, and it thrust me straight into a solid Gothic historical yarn with some genuinely creepy moments! The novel is perhaps misnamed: it focuses on the house Wake's End set beside the local fen, some three miles from the village of Wakenhyrst; and,… Continue reading Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver
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