The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull
Reviewed by Harriet ‘From its first appearance in 1934, Richard Hull’s The Murder of my Aunt was recognised as something special in crime fiction’. So says Martin Edwards in his introduction…
A Dead Rose by Aurora Cáceres
Translation, Foreword & Notes by Laura Kanost Reviewed by Karen Langley The female form is often idealised in art and media, from classical sculptures through paintings and in more modern…
House of Beauty by Melba Escobar
Translated by Elizabeth Bryer Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Each time I walk into town from my house I pass at least one nail/beauty salon/spa/bar/studio (the titles variously inflect the…
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
Translated by Geraldine Harcourt Reviewed by Annabel This latest addition to Penguin Classic’s expanding list of new translations in an upmarket paperback format is a beguiling novella following the story…
Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries, ed. Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Karen Langley Golden Age crime, which has had such a revival recently, is renowned for particular tropes and settings; the country house location or the locked room mystery…
Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives: The First 1000 Years by Chase F. Robinson
A beautiful object, as you can see from the cover image, this is published to be an accessible introduction to pre-modern Islam, looking at thirty of the individuals who founded…
White Houses by Amy Bloom
Reviewed by Susan Osborne I’ve yet to read anything by Amy Bloom that I’ve not loved. Her writing is both deft and empathetic, pressing all my literary buttons. Spanning a…
Review of The Akeing Heart by Peter Haring Judd
Review by Simon How you approach The Akeing Heart will depend largely on how familiar you are with the names Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, and Elizabeth Wade White. These…
Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey
Reviewed by Harriet Four years after Emma Healey’s best selling Elizabeth is Missing comes her second novel, Whistle in the Dark. It’s a psychological thriller of sorts, but don’t expect…
Edgar & Lucy by Victor Lodato
Reviewed by Alice Farrant For seven years Florence, Lucy and Edgar have lived in the wake of Frank’s death. No one mentions Frank’s passing and so Grandmother, Daughter-in-law and Son…
The Trick To Time by Kit de Waal
Reviewed by Alice Farrant Mona lives a quiet life as a dollmaker, at face value she appears to be an ordinary woman, however, in private she runs a side-service helping…
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Reviewed by Harriet Asymmetry is defined as ‘lack of equality or equivalence between parts’, a definition that applies both to a theme of this brilliant debut novel and to its…
Souvenir (Object Lessons) by Rolf Potts
Review by Liz Dexter This book is part of the Object Lessons series, which exists to highlight the hidden lives of ordinary things. This one is about travel souvenirs brought…
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
Reviewed by Annabel They say that in Tangier, the local hustlers have clocked all the new arrivals within hours – this is what I was told when I visited Tangier…
Happiness by Aminatta Forna
Review by Lucy Unwin “You know how it is with white people. You say it’s race, they tell you you are mistaken. Then they say it’s because of your race…
Our Place: Can we save Britain’s wildlife before it is too late? by Mark Cocker
Review by Peter Reason When I was a small boy, back in the 1950s, we were taken on Sunday School outings to the seaside. I remember seeing great flocks of…
A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey
Reviewed by Harriet A Long Way from Home, as the title implies, is a novel of a journey in more than one sense. An actual physical journey takes up the…
All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J Church
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Elizabeth J. Church’s debut novel, The Atomic Weight of Love, was about an 87-year-old amateur ornithologist whose husband was one of the creators of the atomic…
Rex V. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders by Laura Thompson
Review by Karen Langley The Thompson-Bywaters murder case (also known as “The Ilford Murder”) is notorious, but I think most of my previous knowledge of it comes from two sources:…
The Vintage Shetland Project by Susan Crawford
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton The Vintage Shetland Project has had quite a journey into print, one that I’ve followed with interest for the last 3 years from when I first…
Rosie by Rose Tremain
Reviewed by Harriet I’m a huge admirer of Rose Tremain’s brilliant novels, and very fond of childhood memoirs as a genre, so this one was a must for me. It’s…
The Unbeliever by Oggy Boytchev
Reviewed by Annabel Oggy (Ognian) Boytchev grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria. He developed an interest in spies and spy novels as a child, after hearing propaganda on…
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce
Reviewed by Helen Skinner It’s 1941 and Britain is at war. Emmeline Lake has always wanted to be a journalist and is thrilled when she sees an advertisement in the…
A Chill in the Air by Iris Origo
Review by Terence Jagger This is a fascinating book, written during the year or so preceding Italy’s entry in to the 1939-45 war, when whether she would join – and…