The Forgotten Smile by Margaret Kennedy
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,…
This is the End by Stella Benson
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…
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
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…
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
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…
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
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…
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
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,…
Orfeo by Richard Powers
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,…
Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda
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…
Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton
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…
Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas
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…
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson Sometimes it seems like so such WWII fiction has been published that even stories set during the London Blitz all start to feel too familiar….
The Repercussions by Catherine Hall
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson Catherine Hall has a skilful power for building a story around people hampered by emotionally turbulent pasts in her novels. She did this with beautiful…
Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey
Reviewed by Victoria Best I wonder if not being able to see ourselves is one of the great paradoxes of being alive – knowing oneself intimately and also not at…
Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson
Reviewed by Karen Langley In his time, E.F. Benson was a prolific writer of many different types of fiction, but nowadays he is best remember for his much-loved stories about…
Entry Island by Peter May
Reviewed by Harriet Devine I’d never read anything by Peter May when this book was sent me for review. The first thing that struck me was that Peter May must…
Love Insurance by Earl Derr Biggers
Reviewed by Simon Thomas It’s fun occasionally to read a book that doesn’t take itself remotely seriously. And it would be impossible for Love Insurance (1914) by Earl Derr Biggers to take…
Poisoned Ground by Barbara Nadel
Reviewed by Danielle Simpson In PI Lee Arnold and his assistant Mumtaz Hakim Barbara Nadel has created two of the most unusual and intriguing characters to populate a crime novel…
The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson
Reviewed by Ann Little Dorrit has always been amongst my favourite Dickens’ novels and so I approached Antonia Hodgson’s first novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, with a mixture of caution and anticipation. I didn’t…
Fall From Grace by Tim Weaver
Reviewed by Harriet Devine When I started reading Fall From Grace, I hadn’t realised it was part of a series – the fifth part, to be exact. This is always risky…
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Reviewed by Harriet Devine Phew! Well, the term unputdownable is often bandied around – I’ve done some bandying myself – but there were times when Sarah Waters’ latest novel actually…
Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
Reviewed by Jenny. Mary Renault has a genius for the past. It’s in all her historical books: the stony, fated world of the Greeks, rushed forward to our softer and…
Facial Justice by LP Hartley
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. So, famously, wrote LP Hartley at the beginning of his most famous novel, The Go Between. But what…
Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite A hotel is a confluence of stories: a mixture of public and private space; a places where chance encounters are routine; somewhere that plays host to…
Help for the Haunted by John Searles
Reviewed by Victoria Best. Lying in bed, 14-year-old Sylvie Mason hears a telephone call summoning her parents out into the middle of a snowy Baltimore night. This isn’t unusual; her…