Metamorphosis; How and Why We Change by Polly Morland
Reviewed by Victoria ‘Our culture is one in which,’ Polly Morland writes, ‘more than ever before, we feel entitled to change our experiences and ourselves to fit with our dreams…
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Shiny New Books
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet Liana was not simply an ex-girlfriend who had once upon a time broken George’s heart; she was also, as far as George still knew, a wanted criminal….
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Reviewed by Harriet World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural. The epigraph to this novel is by Louis MacNeice, from his poem Snow, and beautifully…
The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
Reviewed by Gill Davies Jill Dawson is a poet and novelist who has made her reputation with carefully researched and vividly recreated historical fiction based on real people and…
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
Translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe Reviewed by Simon Madonna in a Fur Coat, was first published in Turkish in 1943. This translation is the first time this Turkish…
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders
Reviewed by Victoria I do love a good cozy crime mystery and so I had high hopes for the new series by Kate Saunders, concerning her Victorian lady detective, Laetitia…
A Novel Calling: Karen Langley’s Books That Were Written Just For Me
Written by Karen Langley If you’re reading Shiny New Books, there’s a good chance that you’re a person who loves books and regards them as having a significant place in…
An Ancient Permanence? Guest post by Rosy Thornton
My Aunt Sybil (sadly not the figure in black bombazine and lorgnette her name might suggest – think Gore Tex® and stout hiking shoes) on a recent visit to my…
Sandlands by Rosy Thornton
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Full disclosure: there’s a quotation from me on the back of Rosy Thornton’s new book and I make no excuses for reviewing the latest offering from…
For All the Gold in the World by Massimo Carlotto
Translated by Antony Shugaar Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is ‘an Alligator mystery’, latest in a series featuring an independent and unlicensed private investigator, Marco Buratti, tough but not personally violent,…
The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerlöf
Translated by Paul Norlén Reviewed by Annabel We don’t feature many children’s books here at Shiny, but occasionally new editions of much-loved childhood favourites or rediscovered classics will emerge. As…
The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney
Reviewed by Victoria This is the story of a regeneration, though one of the strangest and yet most serene that I have ever read. Samuel Browne is a grieving man;…
The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz
Translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Basma Abdel Aziz is a writer, artist and psychiatrist from Egypt, noted as a critic of government oppression. The Queue is her…
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Reviewed by Helen Parry It’s seldom that I buy new books, being a skinflint with a very large existent TBR, and even rarer for me to fork out for a…
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Reviewed by Annabel Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child, was my favourite book of 2012; I awaited her second with great anticipation. To the Bright Edge of the World is…
Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
Translated by Faith Evans Reviewed by Rachel Fenn Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s intriguing novella, originally published in 1943, has been newly translated by Faith Evans in a beautiful edition produced…
Shiny New Author: Susan Beale
Questions by Victoria Has writing been a long-held ambition for you or is this novel something that you happened to fall into? How I wish I were the type of…
The Good Guy by Susan Beale
Reviewed by Victoria It’s a hot early autumn in 1964 small-town America, in the up-and-coming Elm Grove estate (featuring house types named Charmer, Enchantress and El Dorado, in order to…
Love, or Nearest Offer, Guest Post by Adèle Geras
The person who gave me the very first idea for this book was Sally Prue, a good writer and a good friend of mine. It was, I think, while my…
Love, or Nearest Offer by Adèle Geras
Reviewed by Victoria I don’t know about you, but the past month of UK politics has given me a pressing need to bury my head in soothing and reassuring fiction….
The Book of Haps edited by Kate Davies and Jen Arnall-Culliford
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I’m a little late to the party as far as the knitting revival goes, but better late than never. I grew up in Shetland at a…
Five Fascinating Facts About… A.A. Milne
Written by Simon Thomas 1.) A.A. Milne had a famous schoolteacher. A.A. Milne’s father John ran a small boys’ school, Henley House, and one of the teachers he employed was a…
A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Unquestionably the best thriller writer ever’, says Graham Greene on the cover of this new British Library Crime Classics title, one of three they have recently published…
Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa Reviewed by Harriet As a couple, they had spotted me like one of those distant shapes on the ocean that can’t be ignored and had…