Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Reviewed by Lucy Unwin This is the most grittily realistic book I’ve read in a while — it just happens to be a ghost story. Somehow, despite its fantastical content, Sing,…
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway
Reviewed by David Harris This has been a hard book to review. I find this is surprisingly often of true the very best books, say the ones you’d give six…
Artemis by Andy Weir
Reviewed by Annabel Those who read Weir’s debut novel, The Martian (which Dan reviewed for us here), tended to fall into two camps. As SF novels go, it was funny,…
Nine Lessons by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Harriet Nine Lessons is the seventh of Nicola Upson’s crime novels featuring the mystery writer Josephine Tey (1896-1952). I normally have a few reservations about the seemingly fashionable…
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
Reviewed by Alice Farrant “We can get the Times to write something. Or that nut from the Observer.”“Wait, what… what nut from the Observer?”“Frank something? The one who’s so in…
Ornithology by Nicholas Royle
Reviewed by Annabel Earlier this year, I reviewed the novel An English Guide to Birdwatching by an author named Nicholas Royle, and I interviewed its author. Ornithology is not by…
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
Review by Annabel I love reading medical memoirs, we’ve featured neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s two volumes here at Shiny (see my review of Do No Harm here), and heart surgeon Stephen…
A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies However deeply the irony may have entered his soul, John le Carré has no reputation as a jester. An element of satire typifies his work, always….
The Other Woman by Laura Wilson
Reviewed by Harriet A couple of years ago on Shiny I reviewed Laura Wilson’s The Wrong Girl. That was a tense psychological thriller centring on family relationships, and so, in…
New People by Danzy Senna
Reviewed by Alice Farrant Maria and Khalil are the perfect couple, “King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom”. Maria is a successful scholar, writing her dissertation on the Jonestown…
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is Attica Locke’s fourth novel and a stunning follow-up. Black Water Rising was set in 1981; Pleasantville in 1996 and both used the crime genre with deep political insight…
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Paperback review by Lucy Unwin There is no question, this book is stunning: in its scope, its ambition, in what it can teach us and in the skill on display….
Sugar Money by Jane Harris
Reviewed by Harriet Jane Harris is not exactly a prolific novelist. Five years passed beween the publication of her debut novel The Observations (2006) and her second outing Gillespie and…
Return to the Dark Valley by Santiago Gamboa
Translated by Howard Curtis Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies I found a molten quality in this novel (if it is a novel). It burns off the page, as they say. It…
The Squeeze by Lesley Glaister
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Admitted, to say that the world has shrunk into a village has shrunk into a cliché itself. But the cliché is painfully accurate, and Lesley Glaister’s The…
Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak
Paperback Review by Eric Karl Anderson It’s deeply frightening and upsetting how politically divided society is at the moment. When different factions are so convinced about the certitude of their…
Autumn by Ali Smith
Paperback review by Clare Rowland Autumn is the first of four books in a planned series of novels by Ali Smith named after the seasons and which focus on how we experience time….
The Tryst by Monique Roffey
Reviewed by Harriet This is a remarkable book by any standard. It’s marketed by the publisher, Dodo Ink, as a literary erotic novella, which sounds about right, as long as…
The Easy Way Out by Steven Amsterdam
Paperback reviewed by Susan Osborne This novel is unlikely to appeal to everyone although we should all read it. It’s about assisted suicide, one of the great moral dilemmas of…
The Brazilian by Rosie Millard
Reviewed by Laura Marriott The Brazilian opens in a London beauty salon where the middle class and nearly middle aged (although she would be furious if you suggested so!) Jane is…
Testimony by Scott Turow
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies The ‘international theme’ – Old World/New World – was a foreground concern of Henry James. It typically featured the experience in Europe of an American…
The Ready Made Thief by Augustus Rose
Reviewed by Harriet ‘A kickass debut from start to finish’ screams the cover of this highly readable, somewhat bizarre, debut novel. It’s a book that defies categorisation – perhaps best…
Elmet by Fiona Mozley
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite When the 2017 Man Booker Prize longlist was announced last month, it included a number of familiar names (including Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13, which I’ve reviewed for…
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, by Theodora Goss
Reviewed by Helen Parry I’m very fond of Theodora Goss’s short stories, so when I saw that she was publishing a novel I was excited and ordered a copy straight…