Apeirogon by Colum McCann
Review by Anna Hollingsworth The most exhilarating reviews to write are those where you can bring a book down, even if it’s just a tiny bit for an odd stylistic…
Actress by Anne Enright
Reviewed by Harriet Why have I never read Anne Enright before? I’m always interested in Booker prize winners (she won for The Gathering in 2007) and I’m a great admirer…
A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier
Translated by Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel For the past eight years, Gallic Books have been translating and publishing the gloriously black-humored noir novellas of Pascal Garnier. Garnier, who died…
A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
Reviewed by Harriet, 14 April 2020 In early times I was Ojinjintka, which means rose. Thomas McNulty tried very hard to say this name, but he failed, and so he…
The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson
Reviewed by Susan Osborne, 2 April 2020 I’m a fan of Jill Dawson’s writing. Her last novel, The Crime Writer, was a wonderful piece of literary fan fiction, a perverse…
Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
Reviewed by Laura Marriott We start at a dinner party. If you groan inwardly at the very thought of a family dinner party then you are on the same page…
Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve reviewed two of Peter Swanson’s excellent psychological thrillers on Shiny before. There have been a couple of others since then, reviewed on my blog rather than…
Fandango and Other Stories by Alexander Grin
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a wave of wonderful new translations of ‘lost’ Russian authors of the 19th and 20th century. Some have…
The Ruins by Mat Osman
Reviewed by Annabel I am an absolute sucker for any novel with a bit of rock’n’roll in it, and two of my favourite reads from 2019 fitted that bill. Taylor…
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Review by David Hebblethwaite Winter in Sokcho is a first in several senses: the debut novel by French-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, and the first…
Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth There’s a point in Miss Austen where I felt that my sins had been found out. Cassandra, Jane Austen’s now elderly sister, tells a younger relation…
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Review by Annabel Anyone who works in a school these days will be familiar with ‘lockdown’ procedures, with code reds being the ones you hope you’ll only ever have to…
Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini
Translated by J. Ockenden Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Who could resist the title of this Italian bestseller? A black comedy about a hermit in the Italian Alps, it starts off…
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Review by Laura Tisdall Jai is nine years old and lives with his family in the slums of New Delhi. He loves watching reality cop shows, especially Police Patrol (presumably a fictionalised…
It Would be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo
Translated by Elizabeth Bryer Reviewed by Susan Osborne Venezuelan writer Karina Sainz Borgo’s It Would Be Night in Caracas is one of three novels published to launch HarperVia, a new…
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Review by Anna Hollingsworth Let’s face it: anything involving human tragedies, poverty, despair, abuse and crime offers a wealth of material for a novelist of any genre. At the risk…
Happy Ever After by C. C. MacDonald
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Adultery. It crops up everywhere. Few grown-up pastimes are as popular as disobeying the sixth Commandment. Where would novels, plays and movies be without it? It’s…
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Review by Annabel This short novel told in letters took me pleasantly by surprise. Within pages I was hooked, and I read it in one extended sitting, shedding a tear…
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai Reviewed by Harriet This delightful reprint from Pushkin Press is widely viewed as one of Japan’s greatest murder mysteries. Amazingly this is its first English…
Sorry for the Dead by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Harriet Here at Shiny we are great admirers of Nicola Upson’s books – her most recent novel, Stanley and Elsie, was reviewed here, and we’ve also covered two…
The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
Review by David Harris A new book by Claire North is always a very special event in my reading calendar, and William Abbey didn’t disappoint. In something of the same vein as…
Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton
Review by Helen Skinner It’s 1768 and Sara Kemp has just arrived in Spitalfields, the London parish which has become home to a thriving community of Huguenot silk weavers. Sara…
The Measure of a Man by Marco Malvaldi
Review by Terence Jagger I was intrigued to see this novel on my doormat: Malvaldi is better known (to me at least) as a writer of crime stories, and I…
Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong
Translated by Natascha Bruce Review by David Hebblethwaite Ho Sok Fong is a Malaysian writer whose short stories have won a number of awards. Lake Like a Mirror is her second collection,…