The King’s Witch by Tracy Borman
Reviewed by Julie Barham This is the debut novel written by Tracy Borman, who is a popular historian and Curator of Historic Royal Palaces. The research is therefore impeccable, the…
The Town by Shaun Prescott
Reviewed by Harriet This is how things are going to be from now on. This is how they’re going to stay. History can end, you know. It doesn’t have to…
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
Review by Annabel Becky Chambers’ third novel is set in the same galactic milieu as her first two. It can be read as a standalone and marks her out as…
Learning to Die by Thomas Maloney
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Three decades of life promise a quarter-life crisis: your 20s are on their way into your 30s, you’re forced to reflect and look back, and, too…
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Reviewed by Annabel The first thing you need to do with this sparkling debut novel is to suspend your disbelief. Just accept that time travel was invented by a quartet…
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In his The Idiot – the original – Dostoyevsky set out on a mission to depict “the positively good and beautiful man.” The namesake, Prince Myshkin,…
To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
Reviewed by Annabel When punk happened, although I was the right age – in my later teens, but I’d already diverted off into prog rock, (I know!). So, I never…
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser
Reviewed by Kim Forrester There’s something about Michelle de Kretser’s silky prose combined with her superbly drawn characters and her forensic eye for detail that makes The Life to Come —the Australian…
Release by Patrick Ness
Review by Annabel Only the fact that I’d never read Mrs Dalloway blinded me to the power of the first sentence of Ness’s latest novel: Adam would have to get the flowers…
Vernon Subutex 2 by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Almost two decades ago I saw a French movie called Baise-moi. It contained, besides much simulated violence, what Wikipedia fastidiously calls ‘several…
The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin
Translated by Lisa Hayden Reviewed by Karen Langley You awake in a hospital bed. You have no memory of who you are or how you came to be there, apart…
Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahnuik
Review by Rob Spence I began reading this book just as the outcry over the Trump regime’s treatment of migrants was gathering pace. It seemed an appropriate time to enter…
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
Translated by Tina A Kover Review by Marina Sofia With a blurb promising a story of growing up in exile and even the title cleverly playing on words ‘disoriented’ and…
Retribution Road by Antonin Varenne
Translated by Sam Taylor Review by Gill Davies Having become rather jaded with the predictability of the crime fiction genre and wearied by the sheer number published, I’ve been interested…
He by John Connolly
Paperback review by Annabel When I first started reading this book, I hadn’t appreciated it was by ‘John’ Connolly of the Charlie Parker crime novels, I mis-read the author’s forename,…
Caroline’s Bikini by Kirsty Gunn
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Alright’ I said, ‘I’ll try’…’But I’ve never done this kind of thing before’ is what I would have said next, I’m sure, as it still seems a…
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
Reviewed by Julie Barham There are some books which are so good that I struggle to find words to suggest how much I appreciate them, and this is one of…
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Review by Peter Reason This is a novel about the place of humans in the living world. Too serious, too philosophical, you might say? But this is also a gripping…
84K by Claire North
Reviewed by David Harris Trying to sum up this book, and North’s writing, in a discussion with a friend on Twitter recently, I said that she is a remarkable writer,…
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
Reviewed by Lucy Unwin I can’t remember seeing a more perfect cover for a book in a while. Everything you need to know about The Water Cure is there. The obscure water…
Star of the North by D B John
Reviewed by Annabel Very few westerners get to visit North Korea, and DB John is one of them – he’s seen the public face of this secretive country from the…
The Sing of the Shore, by Lucy Wood
Review by Helen Parry I have been a fan of Lucy Wood’s writing since reading her début collection of short stories, Diving Belles, and so I was thrilled to see…
The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull
Reviewed by Harriet ‘From its first appearance in 1934, Richard Hull’s The Murder of my Aunt was recognised as something special in crime fiction’. So says Martin Edwards in his introduction…
A Dead Rose by Aurora Cáceres
Translation, Foreword & Notes by Laura Kanost Reviewed by Karen Langley The female form is often idealised in art and media, from classical sculptures through paintings and in more modern…