At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
Reviewed by Harriet This is the fifth of Tracy Chevalier’s eight absorbing historical novels I’ve read, and in my view it’s the best so far. I was completely sucked in…
Reviewed by Harriet This is the fifth of Tracy Chevalier’s eight absorbing historical novels I’ve read, and in my view it’s the best so far. I was completely sucked in…
Translated by Jessica Moore Reviewed by Annabel It is easy to see why this novel (in this translation; Sam Taylor has translated it in the USA as The Heart) has been…
Reviewed by Gill Davies Behind Closed Doors is the second novel in Elizabeth Haynes’s new series featuring the Major Crime team in Briarstone. The first was Under A Silent Moon, published in…
Reviewed by Rob Spence 2016 is clearly going to be the year of Shakespeare, though it seems rather gruesome to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary of his death. In 1964, when the…
Reviewed by Annabel This novel was published in 1967, the fifth of twelve novels by the former ranch hand, and commonly thought to be his best. Savage, who died in…
Reviewed by Kirsty Gibson I’ve been reading my way through the British Library Crime Classics for some time now, so when Simon gave me a copy of Murder at the Manor to…
Translated by Roland Glasser Reviewed by Terence Jagger TRAM 83: BY DAY AS BY NIGHT, ETERNAL IN ITS SPLENDOUR OF A PARADISE GOING TO HELL IN A HANDCART, WITH THE…
Reviewed by Victoria Hoyle I was sold Shirley Barrett’s Rush Oh! entirely on the strength of a fellow blogger’s review. She made it sound so deliciously enchanting that I had…
Translated by Annie Prime Reviewed by Eleanor Franzen Maresi is thirteen or so. She lives in a fantastical realm on an island called Menos, under the protection of the Sisters…
Reviewed by Harriet I’m sure I’ve read Helen Dunmore before, but it must have been a long time ago as a scan of her previous titles fails to ring any…
Reviewed by Annabel Up until now, Meg Rosoff has primarily been known for her seven novels for teens, for which body of work she has just won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial…
Selected by Jenny and Memory In each issue of Shiny New Books, Jenny and Memory highlight the most exciting young adult novels of the season. This spring, they’re perhaps a leetle bit…
Reviewed by Annabel I was only three when JFK was assassinated, remaining blissfully unaware of the events that etched themselves into the psyches of everyone old enough to understand what…
Reviewed by Harriet Anyone who’s studied, or taken an interest in, women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries will have encountered the work of Janet Todd. She has written biographies of…
Reviewed by Annabel When offered a review copy of Titan Books latest addition to their ongoing reprints of the Modesty Blaise cartoon strips series, I couldn’t say no, firstly as…
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley As well as being the driving force behind the Stefan Zweig revival, Pushkin Press has also done fans of Russian authors a…
Reviewed by David Harris At first sight this book is (post)apocalyptic fiction in the classic vein, meaning, of course, John Wyndham. We are introduced to the world as it is…
Reviewed by Ann As far as I am concerned there are few pleasures greater than a new novel from Elly Griffiths in her series featuring forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway and…
Reviewed by Annabel Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell has long been one of my favourite novels. Woodrell’s books which are mostly set in the Missouri Ozarks tend to feature poor folk…
Reviewed by Gill Davies After You Die is when the police arrive, and crime fiction begins. An explosion in a house in a village outside Peterborough leads to the discovery of…
Paperback review by Gill Davies Laura Lippman is a very accomplished crime writer. She began her writing career as a journalist on the Baltimore Sun and has written a number of successful…
Reviewed by Laura Marriott As Ireland commemorates the events surrounding the 1916 Easter Rising this timely novel teases out what this event means to the youth of today. Citizens is set…
Reviewed by Annabel Thank goodness that Ali Shaw’s novels are impossible to categorise. They are contemporary dramas with transformation at their heart, not out and out fantasies, but full of…
Reviewed by Simon While Vita Sackville-West is today best remembered as having (probably) been the lover of Virginia Woolf, and as the mind behind the garden at Sissinghurst, she was…