Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge
Reviewed by Claire Hayes From its opening sentence, Peking Picnic evokes an exquisite sense of time and place – or rather of two places. For Laura Leroy, wife of a British attaché…
The Artificial Anatomy of Parks by Kat Gordon
Reviewed by Victoria It’s been ages since I read a good, old-fashioned family story, and although Kat Gordon’s debut novel wears the veneer of contemporary culture, set partly in a…
Death of Anton by Alan Melville
Having really loved Alan Melville’s Quick Curtain, it didn’t take much to convince me that I wanted to try another of his detective novels, also published in the British Library Crime…
Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins by James Runcie
Reviewed by Victoria Since I last reviewed a volume of Sidney Chambers stories, the first television series of the clerical detective’s cases has aired. This has undoubtedly brought Grantchester and its inmates…
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Reviewed by David Harris The first thing to say about this book – and it’s the first thing you will notice – is that it’s long. Massive. An 861 page…
Orient by Christopher Bollen
Reviewed by Alice Farrant Orient, murder mystery come introspective character novel, is Christopher Bollen’s second literary offering. Set on the North Fork of Long Island in the town of Orient,…
Vain Shadow by Jane Hervey
Reviewed by Anna Barber Now they would be able to afford a big house, a swimming pool, maids, a car….“I hope he didn’t have any pain,” she said. In Vain Shadow,…
The Studio Crime by Ianthe Jerrold
Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1929, this is the first of only two crime novels written by Ianthe Jerrold. The descendent of a celebrated literary family, she became a member…
Riders by Jilly Cooper
Reviewed by Annabel Can you believe that it is thirty years since Jilly Cooper introduced us to Rutshire and her best-selling doorstop of sex and showjumping? Her publishers, Corgi, have…
Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg
Reviewed by Victoria Between 1943 and 1964, journalist for The New Yorker, Joseph Mitchell, regularly wrote pieces about people who lived on the margins of the city, eccentrics and originals and people…
The Wrong Girl by Laura Wilson
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve been a fan of Laura Wilson since I discovered her first DI Ted Stratton novel, Stratton’s War, published in 2008. Four more in this intelligent and beautifully researched series…
The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey (YA)
Reviewed by Jodie A pretty cover, a pickpocket heroine and a quest for a Firebird? ‘Sounds cute,’ I thought as I paid for The Girl at Midnight. I was sure it…
Preparations for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Lish’s novel is mostly about institutions. He writes about armies, prisons, service-level workplaces – his characters sleep in hostels and on the benches of bus terminals. Most…
London Rain by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Rob Spence Josephine Tey was a writer of unusual detective fiction in the so-called Golden Age of the genre. Her best-known, and most unusual novel was The Daughter of…
Paradise City by Elizabeth Day
Reviewed by Victoria The narration of Elizabeth Day’s third novel is woven together from four different perspectives that, when we are first introduced to them, seem utterly disparate. What do…
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Reviewed by Harriet He had made a vow, a private promise to the world in the long dark watches of the night, that if he did survive then in the…
Pleasantville by Attica Locke
Reviewed by Gill Davies Pleasantville is the third novel by Attica Locke. I remember that the reviews for her first novel, Black Water Rising, were very good but regrettably I didn’t get round…
Reader for Hire by Raymond Jean
Translated by Adriana Hunter Reviewed by Simon Peirene are well-known across the blogsphere for their programme of publishing translated novellas, and grouping them into trios under different series titles. Reader For…
Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin
Reviewed by Victoria Diana Dodsworth is an enigma to the reader, a complicated, prickly person in her 40s who seems imperfectly stitched together over a festering mass of secrets and…
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Reviewed by Shoshi Ish Horowicz Outline is about a woman teaching on a creative writing course in Greece. That sentence doesn’t do any justice to the novel, but I feel a…
In My House by Alex Hourston
Reviewed by Linda Boa Margaret Benson is 57 years old. She lives alone, bar her dog Buster, in her own house in a comfortable, middle class area of London. She…
Early Warning by Jane Smiley
Reviewed by Victoria There’s a strong tradition of episodic narrative in the books that clamour for the title of Great American Novel – Faulkner, Kerouac, Salinger, Twain, Henry Miller and…
Waverley by Walter Scott
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Waverley has been on my ‘ought to read’ list for longer than I care to remember, so when Shiny New Books asked me to read a new…
Sylvia by Leonard Michaels
Reviewed by Karen Langley The blurring of the lines between fiction and fact is an artistic trope which is very much in vogue in current writing. Novels abound featuring real…