Death in the Rainy Season by Anna Jacquiery
Reviewed by Linda Boa I didn’t know much about Cambodia before I read Anna Jacquiery’s second Inspector Morel novel, Death In The Rainy Season. In this book, though, we don’t see a great deal…
Introducing the Shiny Book Club
We hope that some of you have managed to read our first Shiny Book Club choice – Laline Paull’s The Bees. We left you with some questions below to think about…
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Reviewed by Jane Carter I have a very clear memory of visiting a bookshop, a good few years ago. I had a birthday book token, and I wasn’t too sure…
The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies by Martin Millar
Reviewed by Max Dunbar The Altar of Pity: Martin Millar’s Athens ‘I’ve tried setting a novel in ancient Athens before,’ writes Martin Millar, in the afterword to his new book,…
Victorian Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Newton
Reviewed by Helen Parry The sun was now set, and the darkness coming on, but the child thought of no danger but the bears behind her. If she had looked…
The Writing of Our Endless Numbered Days
By Claire Fuller In 2011 a teenage boy turned up in Berlin claiming that he had been living in the German forests with his father for the previous five years…
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
Reviewed by Annabel They say that every picture tells a story – or sometimes more. When seventeen year old Peggy finds an old photograph of her family and Oliver, the…
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
Paperback review by Annabel A large part of the novel Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (which I reviewed here) was set twenty years after a global flu pandemic had wiped out…
The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black
Reviewed by Harriet I thought there wasn’t much more damage that could be done to me that hadn’t already been done. You get hardened by life knocking away at you…
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Reviewed by Claire Boyle Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is like nothing you have ever read before. Literally. Hyperbole or not, it is one of those cult classics that those who…
The Door That Led to Where by Sally Gardner
YA review by Annabel Once Sally Gardner gained enough confidence to start writing novels for older children and teens, already being a fabulous illustrator and author of some great stories…
The Lady from Zagreb by Philip Kerr
Reviewed by Linda Boa Well, after a short break, during which the ubiquitous Philip Kerr wrote Research and Prayer, Bernie Gunther has returned by popular demand for his tenth outing. To be honest, I think this…
Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville
Review by Hayley Anderton When I started reading this book I was a little ambivalent about it. I was attracted by the promise of a fairy tale but also wary…
Hotel Arcadia by Sunny Singh
Reviewed by Annabel Sam thought that the first shots were in her nightmares. … No, she never thought of bullets, except in her dreams. Perhaps that is why she felt…
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Reviewed by Annabel To those of us living in the UK, it probably seems inconceivable that you can live a whole life without ever seeing the sea. It is this…
Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain by Melanie Keene
Reviewed by Helen Parry Thomas Gradgrind is the famously awful teacher from Hard Times. His philosophy: ‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts…
Five Fascinating Facts About… Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Compiled by the Shiny editors. We join in the celebrations of the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with our own little tribute: 1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland started off…
Celebrating the Centenary of Ladybird Books
Written by Steerforth The reading public is usually fairly indifferent to publishing centenaries, but the 100th anniversary of Ladybird has been a phenomenal success, celebrated with books, merchandise, a popular…
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller
Reviewed by Annabel What do you do when you seriously lose your reading mojo? I tend to retreat into a palate-cleansing thriller to get mine back, but I’ve never had…
The Year of Reading Dangerously (and Seven Years of Living with the Consequences).
By Andy Miller About ten years ago, I had a bright idea. It involved reading a baker’s dozen of books I had always meant to read but had never got…
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
Reviewed by Annabel Faber & Faber is one of my favourite publishers; in recent years with Faber Finds they’ve started to make the most of their impressive backlist – we’ve…
The Case of the Hail Mary Celeste by Malcolm Pryce
Reviewed by Victoria It is such a delightful surprise when a book you knew nothing about turns out to be a corker. I had never read any of Malcolm Pryce’s…
The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
Reviewed by Harriet Ruth Galloway’s five-year-old daughter Kate is off to her first day at school. ‘Say goodbye to Daddy’, says Ruth.‘Bye, Daddy’.‘Bye, sweetheart’. Nelson takes a last picture of…
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet “Okay,” she said, and thought a moment. “Truthfully, I don’t think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference…