Three-Card Monte by Marco Malvaldi
Translated by Howard Curtis Reviewed by Terence Jagger I knew nothing of this author, but enjoyed this light, untroubling murder mystery set in the coastal town of Pineta in Italy. …
Translated by Howard Curtis Reviewed by Terence Jagger I knew nothing of this author, but enjoyed this light, untroubling murder mystery set in the coastal town of Pineta in Italy. …
Reviewed by Lyn Baines Together and Apart is a novel about marriage and divorce and about how events can very quickly run out of control. Betsy Canning is bored with her…
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch Reviewed by Victoria Best Well this is a curious book, and one that’s been divisive in the online reviews, with a fair few…
Translated by Emily Boyce Reviewed by Annabel I am a recent convert to the dark noir novels of French author Pascal Garnier. There has been a lot of interest around…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long The Lost Prince is not one of Burnett’s well known titles. The Little Princess and The Secret Garden are those that spring to mind when this author’s name is mentioned and The…
Reviewed by Denise Kong The Emperor Waltz is a long (over 600 pages), complex and astonishing read. If you like David Mitchell, Alan Hollinghurst or Donna Tartt, you’ll probably like The Emperor…
Reviewed by Simon Thomas Edith Olivier’s The Love Child (1927) was her first novel, and easily her best. Although rediscovered as a ‘modern classic’ in 1981 by Virago, it has not been…
Reviewed by Jodie Robson Over the last few weeks I’ve been rediscovering an almost forgotten aspect of childhood in the company of two very exciting young men: Phillip D’Aubigny, Knight…
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Milan Kundera wrote that ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ Winston Smith, of course, worked as an editor in…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Having enjoyed Daisy Goodwin’s first novel, The Last Duchess and enjoyed it greatly I was looking forward to her second, The Fortune Hunter, and even more so when I…
Review by Jane Carter I must confess that until quite recently I had never heard of Una L Silberrad, but now that this lovely book has fallen into my hands…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I think I must have been about seven or eight when I was given this book for Christmas. I doubt if it can have been the…
Reviewed by Simon Nobody loves a good reprint better than I do, and so I was quite excited to see a series from Vintage called ‘Vintage Movie Classics’, wherein they…
Reviewed by Rowland Jones Our narrator, Jim Hawkins… Ah, Jim Hawkins as of Treasure Island you may ask? Well, yes and no. This is Jim Hawkins the son, who has also been…
Reviewed by Simon Thomas The Ladies of Lyndon, Margaret Kennedy’s first novel, was published in 1923, while the one which followed in 1924 – The Constant Nymph – was an enormous bestseller,…
Reviewed by Simon Thomas One of the more unusual novelists being reprinted at the moment is Stella Benson. Her work is issued by Michael Walmer, a one-man publishing house that…
Reviewed by Victoria Best ‘My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.’ So begins this…
Reviewed by Ann In many respects, How the Light Gets In, Louise Penny’s previous novel about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, tied up a plethora of loose ends. Throughout the earlier books in…
Reviewed by Simon If you’ve ever wondered what sort of prose Catherine Morland might have read before she ventured to Northanger Abbey, then look no further than Horace Walpole’s The Castle of…
Reviewed by Jane Carter My mother, when she was a very small girl, was given a beautiful copy of The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde. She loved that book,…
Reviewed by Susan Osborne This is the first year that the Man Booker Prize has been opened up to include entries from the U.S.A. Out of a longlist of thirteen,…
Translated by Adriana Hunter Reviewed by Bookgazing. At the beginning of Under the Tripoli Sky, the book’s young narrator, Hadachinou, is subject to a bris; a ritual Jewish circumcision. The bris…
Reviewed by Harriet Devine There is one characteristic which may be safely said to belong to nearly all happily married couples – that of desiring to see equally happy marriages…
Reviewed by Kim Forrester Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas hit the big time with his best-selling novel The Slap in 2008. It won the ALS Gold Medal (2008), the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best…