June 21, 2022 Cold Heaven by Brian Moore Reviewed by Harriet This is the first book I’ve read by the multi-award-winning Irish Canadian author, but on the strength of this remarkable novel…
April 26, 2022 Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes 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…
March 24, 2022 Latchkey Ladies by Marjorie Grant 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…
March 1, 2022 Into Egypt by Rosalind Brackenbury Review by Rob Spence This novel, first published nearly half a century ago, deals with matters which still, sadly, resonate today. Our protagonist is…
February 10, 2022 Jane’s Country Year by Malcolm Saville Reviewed by Harriet Jane woke slowly. For a long minute she lay drowsing with her eyes shut, wondering why the bed felt so different….
January 27, 2022 The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Harriet Seishi Yozomizo (1902-1991), whose works are hugely celebrated in Japan, has been described as ‘the Japanese Agatha…
January 18, 2022 The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning Review by Elaine Simpson-Long When this book arrived and I saw the names of the two authors, Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, my first…
December 14, 2021 Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs Reviewed by Harriet This delightful novel is part of the latest batch of the British Library Women Writers series. I’ve reviewed a few of…
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 Summertime, All the Cats are Bored by Philippe Georget Translated by Steven Rendall Review by Terence Jagger He moved cautiously forward through the tall grass, following a trail of broken stems. And it…
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,…
