Madame Tussaud’s Apprentice by Kathleen Benner Duble (YA)
Reviewed by Jenny As Kathleen Benner Duble remarks in her author’s note (always my favorite part of any historical novel), Marie (‘Manon’) Tussaud had a fascinating life. Her mother was…
The Reflection by Hugo Wilcken
Reviewed by Annabel In this review, I could just make a list of the all the great noir novels and movies and their authors that went through my mind as…
Till Kingdom Come by Andrej Nikolaidis
Translated from the Montenegrin by Will Firth Reviewed by Chelsea McGill Strange things are happening to our narrator, a local newspaper reporter living in the seaside town of Ulcinj, Montenegro…
Two Years Eight Months & Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
Reviewed by Annabel Before you ask – yes, that does make 1001 nights. Rushdie’s new novel may have its roots in the ancient tales but it is also a thoroughly modern story…
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all It may seem perverse to reinterpret…
Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick De Witt
Reviewed by Susan Osborne Undermajordomo Minor is Patrick deWitt’s third novel. His second, The Sisters Brothers, was a darkly comic western set in mid-nineteenth century Oregon which followed the careers of two…
The House in Smyrna by Tatiana Salem Levy
Translated by Alison Entrekin Reviewed by Tony Malone Tatiana Salem Levy was one of the writers featured in Granta’s Best Young Brazilian Novelists list a couple of years back, and her debut…
The Ecliptic by Benjamin Wood
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Portmantle is a mysterious artists’ retreat centre on the Turkish island of Heybeliada. Its rules are strict: acceptance is at the recommendation of a sponsor, and…
The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait
Reviewed by Esther Brazil “Some children have a most disagreeable way of getting grown-up: I hope you won’t do anything of that sort before we meet again.” So wrote Lewis…
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson I’ve read a couple of fascinating dystopian novels recently: Station Eleven and Not Forgetting the Whale. Both use a dark forecast of the future to say something meaningful…
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Reviewed by Annabel Hats off to Bloomsbury on the lovely design of this wonderful novel. You can’t see here, but there is a cut-out of the watch dial, and all around…
The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas
Reviewed by David Harris This book is very different from Thomas’s last, Our Tragic Universe. We see events from several viewpoints, mostly members of the rambling Gardener family: Fleur, her lover…
Tender by Belinda McKeon
Reviewed by Alice Farrant Tender by Belinda McKeon is a literary tour-de-force. A frighteningly addictive tumble down the rabbit hole of obsessive love and friendship in late-90s Ireland. Catherine is 18,…
Colouring In by Angela Huth
Reviewed by Adèle Geras First, full disclosure. Susan Hill, whose Long Barn Books has published this novel, sent me a copy as a gift. She had no idea that I was…
The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock
Review by Annabel Anyone who has ever been enthralled by reading or seeing the film of The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe’s seminal story of the USA’s quest to break the…
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (YA)
Reviewed by Bookgazing For a while now, there’s been some online discussion about whether “the coming out novel” has had its day, and whether modern readers need stories where characters…
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Reviewed by Harriet Rarely can the publication of a novel have been surrounded by such an uproar and so many misconceptions. Let’s put one of them straight right away —…
Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen
Reviewed by Victoria When I first heard that an author had produced a rewrite of Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Enchanted April, I was extremely eager to read it. I love von…
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Paperback review by Susan Osborne When I think of Baltimore two things come to mind: Anne Tyler and The Wire, polar opposites in terms of subject matter but both supreme exemplars…
Rupert Wallis – My First Year as a Published Author
As his second YA novel All Sorts of Possible is published (reviewed here), author Rupert Wallis stops off at Shiny New Books on his blog tour to tell us about his experience including…
All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis (YA)
Reviewed by Annabel I saw a repeat of a Horizon TV programme all about sinkholes the other month. Geology professor Ian Stewart was in Florida, which is the sinkhole capital of the…
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Reviewed by Sakura Gooneratne Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. He doesn’t devour them really; it only feels that…
Remix by Non Pratt (YA)
Reviewed by Jodie When I reviewed The Girl at Midnight I mentioned how great it was to read a story with a female friendship at its heart. Lo and behold, Remix by Non Pratt –…
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Paperback review by Harriet Marie-Laure sits on her bed with the window open and travels her hands over her father’s model of the city. Her fingers pass the ship-builders’ sheds…