The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Reviewed by Annabel Unless you live in a hole in the ground (more of that later), it can’t have escaped your attention that Kazuo Ishiguro has…
Billie by Anna Gavalda
Translated by Jennifer Rappaport Reviewed by Harriet Anna Gavalda is a greatly admired novelist in her native France. All her books have been bestsellers and one, Ensemble, c’est tout (rather curiously retitled Hunting…
Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
Reviewed by Harriet I must admit that I’d never heard of Lionel Davidson before this novel came my way. I now know him to have been a celebrated writer of…
The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby
Paperback review by Susan Osborne Please don’t be put off by the Barbie-pink jacket adorning the paperback edition of Nicole Mary Kelby’s novel. It isn’t a sickly sweet, girly read…
Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
Reviewed by Victoria If, like me, you can dimly remember the furore that arose when Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the United States, and if, like me, you thought he was…
The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson (YA)
Reviewed by Bookgazing. David is a social outcast; dubbed ‘Freakshow’ by the bullies at his posh school, Eden Park, and hopelessly in love with the most popular boy in school….
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (YA)
Review by Bookgazing. ‘This is a story about love,’ Jandy Nelson says in her preface to I’ll Give You the Sun ‘crazy complicated love of all kinds: between guys and girls, guys…
The Field of the Cloth of Gold by Magnus Mills
Reviewed by Annabel Mills is one of my favourite authors; a new novel from him is a must-read for me. He has found a unique furrow in the world of…
The Vagrant by Peter Newman
Reviewed by David Harris ‘The Vagrant is his name’ runs the strapline for this book. ‘He has no other.’ In fact, the titular character is never called ‘The Vagrant’ by…
Alice and the Fly by James Rice
Reviewed by Meghan Alice and the Fly opens with Greg, a very shy, awkward teen boy who is deathly afraid of Them – spiders. This fear permeates many of his thoughts, and amongst…
Glass by Alex Christofi
Reviewed by Paul Fishman Why Glass? And, for that matter, why glass? Well, first there’s the protagonist, or hero of sorts, Günther Glass. (Yes, it’s a play on words and a…
Onward Toward What We’re Going Toward by Ryan Bartelmay
Reviewed by Victoria This is a debut novel from a short story writer, and there’s a way in which you can sense the palimpsest of shorter fiction underneath the sweep…
Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
Reviewed by Harriet I hope some children today still read E. Nesbit as avidly as I did, and my own children did. I loved everything of hers, but a particular…
The Bees by Laline Paull
Reviewed by Bookgazing Click HERE for more shininess about The Bees… Flora 717 begins life as a voiceless sanitation worker, set to clean bodies and waste from her hive. She occupies the…
The Exit by Helen Fitzgerald
Reviewed by Harriet He offered to show me around, but I said I was in a hurry. I didn’t want to see old people unless somebody was paying me for…
The Shore by Sara Taylor
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite In Sara Taylor’s debut novel, ‘the Shore’ is the name given to a group of three islands off the coast of Virginia. It’s a flat, largely…
The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray
Reviewed by Simon Thomas Devotees of Persephone Books will know that the best thing about this reprint house is bringing to light authors whose work has long lain unjustly neglected….
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Reviewed by Susan Osborne Set in 1977, Everything I Never Told You is the story of a family whose oldest daughter disappears one night. A few days later the police arrive with…
Someone by Alice McDermott
Paperback review by Victoria Alice McDermott is one of those writers who make you wonder how on earth they do it. Every sentence in her deceptively simple novel, Someone, is written with…
Playthings by Alex Pheby
Reviewed by Anne Goodwin “Nothing to be concerned about” Daniel Paul Schreber reassures himself in the opening paragraph of Alex Pheby’s second novel. Just an ordinary day in a middle-class…
Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith
Reviewed by Harriet. ‘The No.1 greatest crime writer’, proclaims The Times on the covers of Virago’s new reprints of some of Patricia Highsmith’s lesser known novels. That’s obviously a claim…
The Winter War by Philip Teir
Written by Victoria It feels like it’s been quite a while since I last read an engaging portrait of domestic drama from a male writer. Philip Teir’s debut novel has…
The Evolutionist: The Strange Tale of Alfred Russel Wallace by Avi Sirlin
Reviewed by Peter Hobson The Evolutionist is a novel which aims to bring an important scientist in the development of the early scientific theories of evolution to a wider audience. We…
Black Sheep by Susan Hill
Paperback review by Simon Susan Hill is the master (or perhaps that should be mistress) of many genres. She is famous for crime novels, children’s books, and a certain play/film/book/everything…