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Fiction

Re-reading The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Review by Annabel Ever since I read and reviewed this novel, back in the spring of 2015 when it was first published – my review for Shiny is here –…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 30, 2023
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Fiction

The Running Grave by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith

Reviewed by Harriet Like me, many people will have been waiting impatiently for the next installment of the ongoing saga of private detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. Some (not…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 29, 2023
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Fiction

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones

Reviewed by Lory Widmer Hess Neil Gaiman and I have at least one thing in common: we both started reading Diana Wynne Jones when we picked up one of her…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 21, 2023
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Fiction

The Temple of Fortuna, by Elodie Harper

Review by Lory Widmer Hess The Temple of Fortuna is the third book in a trilogy that began with The Wolf Den and continued with The House with the Golden…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 16, 2023
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Fiction

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman

Review by Annabel Imagine, it’s the mid-late 1970s, the Independence Day long weekend, and the founder members of an exclusive country/hunting club, West Heart, are gathered in the Club’s extensive…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 15, 2023
3 1890 2
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Fiction

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Reviewed by Harriet He saw of course that she was an old woman, but she didn’t move or speak like one. A high bosom, handsome, her face had few wrinkles…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 14, 2023
3 1488 1
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Fiction Reprint Translated

Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

Translated by Anthea Bell Review by Terence Jagger Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna, but lived in England, the USA and Brazil, where he apparently died in a double suicide…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 9, 2023
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Fiction Reprint

Emmeline: The Orphan of the Castle, by Charlotte Smith

Review by Helen Parry Despite her virtuous nature, Emmeline Mowbray is destined to cause trouble because she is a beautiful, illegitimate orphan growing up in an isolated and decaying Pembrokshire…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 7, 2023
4 2143 1
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Fiction Reprint Translated

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Translated by Hilda Rosner Reviewed by Harriet Siddhartha had one single goal – to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow – to let the…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books November 2, 2023
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Fiction New Translations of Older Works Reprint Translated

The Siren’s Lament: Essential Stories  by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) was a Japanese author known for his erotically charged stories, and is considered one of his country’s best-known modern…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books October 26, 2023
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Fiction

Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain

Reviewed by Harriet Rose Tremain’s novels – of which we’ve reviewed many on Shiny (see here) – have taken readers to the distant and not so distant past, and to…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books October 24, 2023
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Fiction Reprint Translated

The Evenings by Gerard Reve

Translated by Sam Garrett Review by Rob Spence In Amsterdam, just after the Second World War, Frits, a young office worker, lives a dreary and unfulfilling existence. He lives in…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books October 12, 2023
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Fiction

Once a Monster by Robert Dinsdale

Review by David Harris Once a Monster is firmly historical fiction – it takes us back to 1861, where the narrative is very much set in the realities of the…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books October 10, 2023
4 2589 2
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Fiction Reprint

Introduction to Sally by Elizabeth von Arnim

Reviewed by Harriet ‘You’re really imprisoned, then’, said Carruthers, staring at her. ‘Imprisoned in your beauty’. Salvatia Pinner, always known as Sally despite her parents’ objections, is sixteen years old….

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 28, 2023
3 2609 1
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Fiction

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman

Review by Annabel Mat Osman is best known as the bass guitarist of Suede, but he has also become a fine novelist. His first novel, The Ruins, which I reviewed…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 26, 2023
3 2810 2
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Fiction

The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar 

Review by David Harris Lavie Tidhar seems to be amazingly productive just now, publishing The Circumfernce of the World, an SF novel that really gets to grips with the fact that…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 21, 2023
3 1735 1
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Fiction

The Winding Stair by Jesse Norman

Review by Terence Jagger Jesse Norman has, for his first novel, cleverly selected two hugely important and influential characters to write about, whose importance is immediately obvious, but about whom many…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 20, 2023
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Fiction Reprint

Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

Review by Gill Davies Pushkin Press first published this selection of stories in 2013, after its 2011 publication in the US. Since then, every critic and reviewer I’ve read comments…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 19, 2023
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Fiction

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Reviewed by Harriet A man has a hierarchy of crime, what is morally acceptable and what is not, a crook manifesto, and those who subscribe to lesser codes are cockroaches….

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 14, 2023
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Fiction

The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly

Review by Hayley Anderton For those of us who can dimly remember the late 1970s there’s a good chance that Kit Williams’ Masquerade is a foundational memory. The riddles and…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 7, 2023
2 2118 1
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Fiction Reprint

Suddenly at His Residence: A Mystery in Kent by Christianna Brand

Reviewed by Harriet First published in 1946, Suddenly at his Residence is a wartime novel. You wouldn’t necessarily think so at first – the novel is very much a country…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books September 5, 2023
3 1531 1
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Fiction Translated

My Men by Victoria Kielland

Translated by Damion Searls Reviewed by Harriet This extraordinary, powerful novel begins in Norway, in 1876, and it begins as it means to go on: Brynhild’s head was wrapped in…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books August 31, 2023
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Fiction Reprint

Pipers and a Dancer, by Stella Benson

Review by Helen Parry Mrs Hinds beamed at Ipsie through pince-nez and bubbled her joy through thin lips, but Ipsie made no reply. Americans see English people always reduced to…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books August 29, 2023
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Fiction

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes 

Review by Hayley Anderton It seems as if there’s an almost bottomless appetite for retellings of Greek myths for every age group and across ever more genres; how far are…

Shiny New Books
Shiny New Books August 24, 2023
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