November 11, 2021 Which Way by Theodora Benson (Blog Tour) Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1931 and newly reissued in the British Library Women Writers Series, this is a fascinating book in a number…
October 12, 2021 Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore Review by Basil Ransome Davies In Young Stalin the author studied his subject’s early career under the microscope. In this epic volume he expands…
September 28, 2021 The Lifeline by Hugo Charteris By Rob Spence If you are, as I am, a child of the fifties, then one of your first televisual memories will be of…
September 21, 2021 The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer Review by Hayley Anderton I’ve been reading The Black Moth along with the Georgette Heyer Readalong on Twitter, where we have very mixed feelings…
September 9, 2021 The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino Translated by Rebecca Copeland Review by Annabel Japanese author Natsuo Kirino is primarily known for her crime novels, of which Out is the most…
September 7, 2021 Young Stalin, by Simon Sebag Montefiore Review by Basil Ransome-Davies No one expects an approving biography of Joseph Stalin any more than they do the Spanish Inquisition. He is a…
August 26, 2021 Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki Translated by Karen Van Dyck Review by Karen Langley Coming of age stories are a perennial favourite in both classic and modern literature; and…
August 24, 2021 Five Modern Noh Plays by Yukio Mishima Translated by Donald Keene Review by Terence Jagger This is a slightly misleading title for a new book, as the “modern” Noh plays were…
August 12, 2021 An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen an upturn of interest in Russian émigré authors from the 20th century;…
July 8, 2021 Broken Lights, by Basil Ramsay Anderson Reviewed by Rob Spence Years ago, I was teaching an undergraduate class on the topic of the poetry of the bard of Orkney, George…
July 2, 2021 Eustace and Hilda by L P Hartley Reviewed by Harriet Leslie Poles Hartley was forty-nine when he published his first novel, The Shrimp and the Anemone (1944). It was followed by…
June 22, 2021 The Feast by Margaret Kennedy Reviewed by Harriet Margaret Kennedy has appeared a few times before on Shiny: two of her novels in 2014 [here] and [here] and more…
June 17, 2021 Miss Browne’s Friend by F M Mayor Reviewed by Harriet Born in 1872, Flora Macdonald Mayor was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman and classics professor. Perhaps surprisingly, given her background,…
May 27, 2021 Mamma by Diana Tutton Reviewed by Harriet Published in 1956, Mamma was the first novel Tutton wrote, though her second and now better known Guard Your Daughters was…
May 21, 2021 Mr Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner Reviewed by Harriet It can only be good news that Penguin have been reissuing Sylvia Townsend Warner’s admirable novels. I only discovered her writing…
April 27, 2021 A Rage in Harlem and The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes Reviewed by Annabel I first discovered the mad world of Chester Himes’s Harlem in an old Allison & Busby paperback of The Crazy Kill,…
April 22, 2021 A Virtual Image by Rosalind Brackenbury Reviewed by Helen Parry Until Michael Walmer reissued her first novel, A Day to Remember to Forget, I had never heard of Rosalind Brackenbury….
April 22, 2021 There’s No Story There – Wartime Writing, 1944-1945 by Inez Holden Reviewed by Hayley Anderton This is one of two recent releases from Handheld Press that cover aspects of wartime experience – in this case…
April 6, 2021 Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry by Margaret Kennedy Reviewed by Harriet If you’ve heard of, or read, Margaret Kennedy at all, it’s likely to be her 1924 novel The Constant Nymph. Written…
March 30, 2021 The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz Translated by Philip Boehm Reviewed by Gill Davies This is an important republication of a novel which first appeared eighty years ago under a…
March 30, 2021 The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji Translated by Ho-Ling Wong Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a very unusual book, and I initially disliked its artificiality – extreme, even by…
March 11, 2021 Tang: A Shetland Story by J.J. Haldane Burgess Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Northus is a new project from Michael Walmer (who’s own reprint series will be familiar to many readers here) and…
February 25, 2021 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns Reviewed by Harriet Barbara Comyns seems to be enjoying a well-deserved renaissance at the moment. In addition to this one, just published by Daunt…
February 16, 2021 The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp Reviewed by Harriet At fifty-five, Isobel Brocken was still a nice-looking woman. She dated, of course, all her female friends said so – poor…
January 26, 2021 Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp Reviewed by Harriet Ever since I started reading book review blogs, some years ago now, I have often encountered Margery Sharp’s name, generally accompanied…
