Elektra by Jennifer Saint
Review by Annabel The current vogue for feminist retellings of stories from Greek and Roman myths and legends is showing no signs of slowing down and long may it continue….
Review by Annabel The current vogue for feminist retellings of stories from Greek and Roman myths and legends is showing no signs of slowing down and long may it continue….
Reviewed by Harriet ‘What if you didn’t have to live with your worst memories?’, asks the cover of this debut novel. Anyone who’s seen the film Eternal Sunshine of the…
Reviewed by Harriet It’s the first of September 1939. Hitler has invaded Poland, and though Britain is not yet at war with Germany, there is widespread fear of potential bombing…
Review by Julie Barham This book is a powerful, sometimes brutal historical novel set in the winter of 1607, when life seemed frozen by a cold that exploded trees and…
Review by David Hebblethwaite If Jon McGregor’s name is on the front of a book, I want to read it – it’s as simple as that. There are certain things…
Translated by Anne Mclean Review by Michael Eaude Javier Cercas rose to literary fame two decades ago with Soldiers of Salamis (2001), a novel structured as an investigation into an…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘two sisters, four nights, one city’ is the subtitle of this riveting new novel by Lucy Caldwell. I don’t think I’ve ever used the term riveting in…
Review by Annabel At this early stage of the year, it may be a bit forward of me to suggest that I may have found my book of the year,…
Review by Annabel Sometimes the hype is true, and a publisher’s lead-title for the season really is worth the advance praise heaped on it. This is the case with Lessons…
Reviewed by Harriet This is a body-swap novel – one of the first ever to be published. It’s very entertaining but also quite thought provoking. The swappers here are Polly…
Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston Review by Annabel I’m always interested in adding new Nordic authors to my reading list, which is increasingly expanding beyond the traditional home…
Translated by Michael Favala Goldman Review by Karen Langley The last few years have seen Danish author Tove Ditlevsen’s star in the ascendant following the translation of her autofictional Copenhagen…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘That’s how families work. You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever’. Here, not many pages before the…
Review by Annabel Back in the 1990s, Higson wrote four thrillers for adults, they were dark, nasty and funny. But after them he got sidetracked onto writing for Harry Enfield…
Reviewed by Harriet These girls, buffeting with the world as they did war-work, or any work that would support them, were apt to have moments when independence seemed the most…
Review by Annabel You may know Annie Macmanus as ‘Annie Mac’, the fomer Radio 1 DJ. She left the station last year to pursue other avenues, which have included publishing…
Reviewed by Harriet Peter Swanson is a prolific author, averaging one book a year since his debut, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart in 2014. I’ve reviewed two…
Review by Rob Spence Pete Duffy is having a mid-life crisis. His fiftieth birthday is on the horizon, and his career as a freelance rock music journalist is in freefall….
Review by Terence Hallett This is an intriguing but also frustrating book. I did wonder if the Shiny editors would allow me to write two alternative reviews. The first would…
By Rebecca Foster Short novels can convey much truth in a low page count, ramping up the psychological intensity through pared-back scenes and a focus on one character or a…
Review by Rob Spence This novel, first published nearly half a century ago, deals with matters which still, sadly, resonate today. Our protagonist is an idealistic young English woman, Jo…
Review by Liz Dexter I’d like to introduce you to two astoundingly accomplished debut novels, so well done that you would not think they were first novels; two voices we’d…
Review by Anna Hollingsworth When a novel comes with praise like ”daringly experimental” and “dazzlingly original”, my eyebrow tends to go up. Really? “Original” sounds better on the blurb than…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies The title echoes that of Out of the Past, a canonical film noir that ends uncompromisingly in a double catastrophe and leaves the future of a…