The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet Liana was not simply an ex-girlfriend who had once upon a time broken George’s heart; she was also, as far as George still knew, a wanted criminal….
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Reviewed by Harriet World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural. The epigraph to this novel is by Louis MacNeice, from his poem Snow, and beautifully…
The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
Reviewed by Gill Davies Jill Dawson is a poet and novelist who has made her reputation with carefully researched and vividly recreated historical fiction based on real people and…
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders
Reviewed by Victoria I do love a good cozy crime mystery and so I had high hopes for the new series by Kate Saunders, concerning her Victorian lady detective, Laetitia…
Sandlands by Rosy Thornton
Reviewed by Adèle Geras Full disclosure: there’s a quotation from me on the back of Rosy Thornton’s new book and I make no excuses for reviewing the latest offering from…
For All the Gold in the World by Massimo Carlotto
Translated by Antony Shugaar Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is ‘an Alligator mystery’, latest in a series featuring an independent and unlicensed private investigator, Marco Buratti, tough but not personally violent,…
The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerlöf
Translated by Paul Norlén Reviewed by Annabel We don’t feature many children’s books here at Shiny, but occasionally new editions of much-loved childhood favourites or rediscovered classics will emerge. As…
The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney
Reviewed by Victoria This is the story of a regeneration, though one of the strangest and yet most serene that I have ever read. Samuel Browne is a grieving man;…
The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz
Translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Basma Abdel Aziz is a writer, artist and psychiatrist from Egypt, noted as a critic of government oppression. The Queue is her…
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…
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
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…
Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
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…
The Good Guy by Susan Beale
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…
Love, or Nearest Offer by Adèle Geras
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….
A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler
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…
Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
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…
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye
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…
Sergio Y. by Alexandre Vidal Porto
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…
Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
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…
Journeyman by Marc Bojanowski
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…
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
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…
The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson
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…
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
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…
The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo & Denis Lépée
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…