The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley
Reviewed by Annabel Natasha Pulley’s debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (which I reviewed here in 2015), was a wonderful discovery. A period thriller with hints of steampunk fantasy,…
Patchinko by Min Jin Lee
Review by Gill Davies Patchinko is a very different novel from Min Jin Lee’s earlier Free Food for Millionaires, which I reviewed here. It is a historical novel covering nearly…
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting
Translated by Paul Russell Garrett Reviewed by Harriet For me my mother was a scent, she was a warmth. A leg I clung to. A breath of something blue; a…
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
Review by Annabel This certainly is the year for novels about popular music, of the vinyl persuasion and the power of picking just the right song. We’ve had Magnus Mills’…
What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Born in the UK, raised largely in Nigeria, and now resident in Minneapolis, USA – Africa and the West are blended in debut author Lesley Nneka…
The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes
Reviewed by Annabel Natalie Haynes may be most familiar to you as a journalist and broadcaster, popping up on various shows and with her own series Natalie Haynes Stands Up…
The Zoo by Christopher Wilson
Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Christopher Wilson’s new novel takes us back in time while signalling contemporary concerns. It recalls the Cold War epoch, focussing on the ‘court’ of Josef…
Listening In by Jenny Eclair
Review by Laura Marriott Listening In is a collection of 24 short stories from comedian and writer Jenny Eclair. Her last literary outing was the well-received novel Moving, reviewed on Shiny New…
Can You Hear Me? by Elena Varvello
Translated by Alex Valente Review by Annabel Can you hear me? is no ordinary psychological thriller – to pigeonhole it into that sub-genre would be to ignore large parts of…
No Dominion by Louise Welsh
Reviewed by Annabel No Dominion is the concluding part of Louise Welsh’s Plague Times Trilogy – a dystopian tale of a pandemic and its aftermath. Although Welsh asserts in the…
Holding by Graham Norton
Paperback review by Laura Marriott The first thing one does after finishing Holding is breathe a sigh of relief. When a well-known personality branches into fiction there is always the fear that…
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Paperback review by Lucy Unwin This is not a historical novel. Not just because the facts of slavery in pre-Civil War America are strained through the wonderful, allegorical, imagination of…
Austen-ish – A Reading List of Austen-inspired fiction
Compiled by Annabel and Elaine Perhaps more than any other author, including Dickens and the Brontës, Jane Austen has inspired other writers to use her characters and settings to write…
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
Translated by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce Review by Annabel French author Antoine Laurain has already got himself an army of fans (or should that be ‘armée’!) thanks to Gallic…
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
Reviewed by Lucy Unwin Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize winning debut The God Of Small Things was a sensuous, atmospheric, emotionally powerful book. India’s caste system was the motivator of the plot, and…
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
Reviewed by Harriet It’s every parent’s nightmare – one minute your child is there, next minute they’re gone. My own three-year-old daughter once wandered off in a busy market in…
DIS MEM BER by Joyce Carol Oates
Reviewed by Karen Langley American author Joyce Carol Oates is an astonishingly prolific writer: since the publication of her first book in 1963, she’s produced over 40 novels as well…
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Review by Annabel This novel was my first encounter with Levy and I’ll confess, I found Hot Milk a difficult book to read. Levy has an oblique style that doesn’t yield its…
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
Review by Annabel One thing you can say about Kunzru’s previous novels – they will always have interesting themes that connect with the zeitgeist of the day from computer viruses…
The Stella Prize and its 2017 Winner
By Isobel Blackthorn Could there ever be enough literary prizes to satisfy the ambition of authors? For a very small literary market, Australia has a healthy complement, from the most…
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney
Reviewed by Lucy Unwin That the Bechdel Test for movies even exists has to be one of the more depressing minor details of modern times. If you’ve never come across…
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Review by David Hebblethwaite Jon McGregor is a writer whose work deserves the fullest attention, which it will repay with some extraordinary reading experiences. He has an unerring ability to…
The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig
Reviewed by Annabel Quentin and Lottie want to divorce – but they can’t afford to. Well, can’t afford to sell their big London house and buy two smaller ones that…
The Accusation by Bandi
Translated by Deborah Smith Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Look at all these people, sobbing over a death that happened three months ago, starving because they haven’t been able to draw…