Q&A with Nicola Upson
Interview by Harriet It’s seven years since your first ‘Josephine Tey’ novel, An Expert in Murder, was published by Faber, and this year sees London Rain, the sixth in this highly successful series…
Paradise City by Elizabeth Day
Reviewed by Victoria The narration of Elizabeth Day’s third novel is woven together from four different perspectives that, when we are first introduced to them, seem utterly disparate. What do…
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Reviewed by Harriet He had made a vow, a private promise to the world in the long dark watches of the night, that if he did survive then in the…
Life Among the Savages & Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson
Reviewed by Simon I already knew that I loved Shirley Jackson – I did from the time I was about a chapter into We Have Always Lived in the Castle back in…
Pleasantville by Attica Locke
Reviewed by Gill Davies Pleasantville is the third novel by Attica Locke. I remember that the reviews for her first novel, Black Water Rising, were very good but regrettably I didn’t get round…
Writing about secrets, the false self and insecure identities in my novel, Sugar and Snails, by Anne Goodwin
Article by Anne Goodwin We all have secrets, things we’ve done or aspects of ourselves that we can reveal only to our nearest and dearest, and sometimes not even to…
Reader for Hire by Raymond Jean
Translated by Adriana Hunter Reviewed by Simon Peirene are well-known across the blogsphere for their programme of publishing translated novellas, and grouping them into trios under different series titles. Reader For…
Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Harriet Vintage crime fiction is enjoying a tremendous renaissance at the moment, and the British Library Crime Classics series certainly has a good deal to do with it….
Martin Edwards Q&A
Questions by Harriet Harriet: Martin, although you have been a solicitor all your working life, it’s probably true to say that until recently you have been best known for your crime…
Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin
Reviewed by Victoria Diana Dodsworth is an enigma to the reader, a complicated, prickly person in her 40s who seems imperfectly stitched together over a festering mass of secrets and…
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Lyn Baines The Golden Age of crime fiction spanned the period between the World Wars. There are many stereotypes about the books written during this period, most of them…
Interview with Jon Day, Author of Cyclogeography
Interview with Ingrid Wassenaar (Wednesday 3 June 2015) The other day, my son donned a backpack and wobbled off down our garden path on his small two-wheeler, all by himself,…
Cyclogeography by Jon Day
Reviewed by Victoria The term ‘psychogeography’ may sound unwieldy but it’s actually rather an intriguing and lovely notion. It ties together the ideas that inform the concept of genius loci, or…
Writing about Secrets, the False Self and Insecure Identities in my Novel, Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin
We all have secrets, things we’ve done or aspects of ourselves that we can reveal only to our nearest and dearest, and sometimes not even to them. We all have…
Bloomsbury’s Outsider: A Life of David Garnett by Sarah Knights
Reviewed by Simon Sarah Knights claims that she wrote her biography of David Garnett partly to restore his reputation – not as a writer, but as a person. His wife’s…
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Reviewed by Shoshi Ish Horowicz Outline is about a woman teaching on a creative writing course in Greece. That sentence doesn’t do any justice to the novel, but I feel a…
In My House by Alex Hourston
Reviewed by Linda Boa Margaret Benson is 57 years old. She lives alone, bar her dog Buster, in her own house in a comfortable, middle class area of London. She…
Early Warning by Jane Smiley
Reviewed by Victoria There’s a strong tradition of episodic narrative in the books that clamour for the title of Great American Novel – Faulkner, Kerouac, Salinger, Twain, Henry Miller and…
Waverley by Walter Scott
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton Waverley has been on my ‘ought to read’ list for longer than I care to remember, so when Shiny New Books asked me to read a new…
Sylvia by Leonard Michaels
Reviewed by Karen Langley The blurring of the lines between fiction and fact is an artistic trope which is very much in vogue in current writing. Novels abound featuring real…
William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction by Stanley Wells
Reviewed by Harriet How much can be said about the life and work of Shakespeare in just 135 pages? A surprising amount, in fact. Clearly these OUP Very Short Introductions…
I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers
Reviewed by Annabel To many, Sheers is primarily known as a Welsh poet. His 2005 collection Skirrid Hill was acclaimed, and he has presented some poetry programmes on the television, and wrote…
The Inspiration Behind ‘Hush’
Written by Sara Marshall-Ball Photography has always been a strong presence in my life. I put this mainly down to my mother, who has meticulously catalogued my entire existence from…
Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball
Reviewed by Victoria Illness and the various challenges it poses have become hot topics in contemporary fiction. Cancer narratives abound in fiction and non-fiction, as do stories of mental and…