Room to Dream by Kristine McKenna and David Lynch
Reviewed by Harriet David Lynch’s films are certainly not for everybody. Almost all of them are strange, dark, and increasingly hard to pin down to a plot summary, let alone…
Caroline’s Bikini by Kirsty Gunn
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Alright’ I said, ‘I’ll try’…’But I’ve never done this kind of thing before’ is what I would have said next, I’m sure, as it still seems a…
84K by Claire North
Reviewed by David Harris Trying to sum up this book, and North’s writing, in a discussion with a friend on Twitter recently, I said that she is a remarkable writer,…
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Reviewed by Harriet This little treasure of a book tells the story, in his own words, of the last survivor of the last, illegal, cargo of enslaved Africans to be…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Reviewed by Harriet I forget everything between footsteps. ‘Anna!’ I finish shouting, snapping my mouth shut in surprise. My mind has gone blank. I don’t know who Anna is or…
Sunburn by Laura Lippman
Reviewed by Harriet We’ve reviewed two of Laura Lippman’s novels in Shiny, here and here. One was a police procedural and the other a standalone – Lippman’s output is fairly…
The World Broke in Two by Bill Goldstein
Reviewed by Harriet This enthralling multiple biography is subtitled ‘Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and the year that changed literature’. The year is 1922, and the claim…
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
Reviewed by Harriet I have certain reservations about novels in which the central character is someone who really existed. Sometimes it works really well, as for example in the case…
Lullaby by Leïla Slimani
Translated by Sam Taylor Reviewed by Harriet Moroccan born novelist Leïla Slimani is not the first woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, though she’s only…
Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
Reviewed by Harriet Most people probably think that the presence of black people in Britain began with the large influx of nearly 500 who came over from Jamaica in 1948…
A History of Children’s Books in 100 Books by Roderick Cave and Sarah Ayad
Reviewed by Harriet Earlier this year I reviewed Martin Edwards’ Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, and very good it was too. So when I spotted this one, also…
Portrait of a Murderer by Anne Meredith
Reviewed by Harriet Subtitled ‘A Christmas Crime Story’, this is a remarkably accomplished and fascinating novel by a writer better known under her other pseudonym, Anthony Gilbert. It was much…
A Love Story by Émile Zola
Translated by Helen Constantine Reviewed by Harriet Here on Shiny we’ve reviewed several of the new Oxford World Classics editions of the novels of Émile Zola: Money, Earth and The…
Nine Lessons by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Harriet Nine Lessons is the seventh of Nicola Upson’s crime novels featuring the mystery writer Josephine Tey (1896-1952). I normally have a few reservations about the seemingly fashionable…
A Forger’s Tale by Shaun Greenhalgh
Reviewed by Harriet The subtitle of this fascinating book is ‘Confessions of the Bolton Forger’. Does that ring any bells? If you were keeping half an eye on the news…
Questions for Laura Wilson on The Other Woman
Interview by Harriet Harriet: Hi Laura – thanks for agreeing to answer some questions. I really loved The Other Woman and have some questions specifically about that. But first, our…
The Other Woman by Laura Wilson
Reviewed by Harriet A couple of years ago on Shiny I reviewed Laura Wilson’s The Wrong Girl. That was a tense psychological thriller centring on family relationships, and so, in…
I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Reviewed by Harriet I’ve always admired Maggie O’Farrell’s fiction, and greatly loved her most recent novel, This Must Be the Place, which I reviewed on Shiny last year. I didn’t…
Sugar Money by Jane Harris
Reviewed by Harriet Jane Harris is not exactly a prolific novelist. Five years passed beween the publication of her debut novel The Observations (2006) and her second outing Gillespie and…