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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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….
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…
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…
Translated from French by Jordan Stump Reviewed by Kate Gardner Marie Ndiaye’s latest book could be described as a surrealist family saga, perhaps even magic realist, if I’m allowed to…
Translated by Alex Ladd Reviewed by Victoria I really love shrink lit. There’s something about the lucid and detailed focus on the interaction between patient and psychotherapist that is somehow…
Reviewed by Simon Delta Wedding might win the award for the most beautiful book I’ve read for this issue of Shiny New Books – as an object, I mean, though the…
Reviewed by Susan Osborne There’s something very attractive about a state of the nation novel. It offers the chance to examine a snapshot of a country, taking in the many…
Reviewed by Annabel This is only Alain de Botton’s second novel in a writing career of well over over twenty years. He began with a stylish novel – Essays in Love in…
Reviewed by Kate Gardner In many ways this is a conventional take on historical fiction: old lady recounts her youth for her daughter to read after she dies. But the…
Reviewed by Kim Forrester Australian writer Charlotte Wood has five novels to her name, but she’s never been published in the UK — until now. Fresh from winning the Indie…
Translated by Sue Dyson Reviewed by Helen Skinner This fascinating and complex historical thriller is set in 1661 at the court of France’s Sun King, Louis XIV. As the novel…
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth In an interview with The Guardian, short story writer turned novelist David Means said: ‘History is delusional. Not just an illusion, it’s a delusion.’ Means’s debut novel, Hystopia,…
Reviewed by Alice Farrant My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal is a powerful story that discusses race, mental illness, and family through the abandonment of a child. It’s the…
Reviewed by Annabel Peggy Frew is an up and coming Australian author, and Hope Farm is her second novel. Alongside her writing, Peggy plays bass and sings in indie band Art of…
Reviewed by Victoria Clive James called Nigel Balchin ‘the missing writer of the Forties’, a remark that notes the period in which he was highly acclaimed as a brilliant popular…
Reviewed by Harriet The noise was the worst. Not the crackling of the flames, not the explosions and the clatter of falling buildings, not the shouting and the endless beating…
Translated by Natasha Wimmer Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite There’s some remarkable literature from Mexico being published in English translation at the moment. Writers such as Valeria Luiselli, Yuri Herrera, Paulette Jonguitud,…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s fourth novel, is such an outrageous racial satire that I kept asking myself how he got away with it. Not only did…
Translated by Anthea Bell Reviewed by Susan Osborne Perhaps it’s because many of us in the privileged developed world are living longer these days but there seems to be a…
Reviewed by Laura Marriott Tremarnock is a picture perfect Cornish fishing village, largely untouched by gentrification, poverty or seasonal tourism. It is here that we find our protagonists, for whom…