May 4, 2017 Murder on the Pilgrims Way by Julie Wassmer Reviewed by Victoria If you are like me and enjoy the format of traditional cosy crime – an atmospheric setting, a great cast of…
February 9, 2017 Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty Reviewed by Victoria Apple Tree Yard, (now a series from the BBC), may be billed as a thriller, but like all of Louise Doughty’s…
October 16, 2016 How Sarah Waters Won Over the Reading World By Victoria Best The press release for Sarah Waters’ new novel, The Paying Guests, describes it as ‘the most anticipated book of 2014’ and for…
October 7, 2016 Commonwealth by Ann Patchett Reviewed by Victoria You might think that writing a chronicle of a modern family might be a step down in terms of drama for…
October 3, 2016 Confidence by Rowland Manthorpe and Kirstin Smith Reviewed by Victoria Confidence has to be one of the funniest novels that I’ve read this year. It’s a welcome return to the campus…
August 24, 2016 Two Gentlemen on the Beach by Michael Köhlmeier Translated by Ruth Martin Reviewed by Victoria Who knew that Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill were great friends? I had no idea before reading…
August 23, 2016 Black Water by Louise Doughty Reviewed by Victoria Louise Doughty is probably best known for her novel, Apple Tree Yard, which was a huge hit back in 2013. It told…
August 16, 2016 The Middlepause; On Turning Fifty by Marina Benjamin Reviewed by Victoria When you think of all the great defining events of an ordinary life and how often they feature as the focus…
August 16, 2016 Brexit Reading Written by Victoria In the aftermath of the historic referendum vote on 23rd June, and before we really learn what it means for all…
August 11, 2016 Negroland by Margo Jefferson Reviewed by Victoria ‘I think it’s too easy to recount unhappy memories when you write about race,’ writes Margot Jefferson, as a refrain repeated…
August 11, 2016 Metamorphosis; How and Why We Change by Polly Morland Reviewed by Victoria ‘Our culture is one in which,’ Polly Morland writes, ‘more than ever before, we feel entitled to change our experiences and…
August 10, 2016 The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders Reviewed by Victoria I do love a good cozy crime mystery and so I had high hopes for the new series by Kate Saunders,…
August 4, 2016 The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney Reviewed by Victoria This is the story of a regeneration, though one of the strangest and yet most serene that I have ever read….
August 2, 2016 Shiny New Author: Susan Beale Questions by Victoria Has writing been a long-held ambition for you or is this novel something that you happened to fall into? How I…
August 2, 2016 The Good Guy by Susan Beale Reviewed by Victoria It’s a hot early autumn in 1964 small-town America, in the up-and-coming Elm Grove estate (featuring house types named Charmer, Enchantress…
August 2, 2016 Love, or Nearest Offer by Adèle Geras Reviewed by Victoria I don’t know about you, but the past month of UK politics has given me a pressing need to bury my…
June 29, 2016 Sergio Y. by Alexandre Vidal Porto Translated by Alex Ladd Reviewed by Victoria I really love shrink lit. There’s something about the lucid and detailed focus on the interaction between…
June 21, 2016 A Way Through the Wood by Nigel Balchin Reviewed by Victoria Clive James called Nigel Balchin ‘the missing writer of the Forties’, a remark that notes the period in which he was…
June 16, 2016 Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert Translated by Helen Constantine, Editor Patrick Coleman Reviewed by Victoria If you’ve read a book by the 19th century French novelist, Gustave Flaubert, the…
June 10, 2016 Girl in Profile by Zillah Bethel Reviewed by Victoria There are some novels that are all about the language, and Girl in Profile is one of them. How much you enjoy it…
May 12, 2016 Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann Reviewed by Victoria To add to a long list of lines I wish I’d written, I read somewhere that Valley of the Dolls by…
January 25, 2016 The Prison Book Club by Ann Walmsley Reviewed by Victoria The Prison Book Club was one of those books that I had high hopes for, being mildly fascinated by what goes on…
January 14, 2016 A Woman on the Edge of Time by Jeremy Gavron Reviewed by Victoria In 1965, shortly before Christmas, a young, ambitious mother of two children on the brink of publishing her first book of…
December 9, 2015 Pushkin Vertigo – titles by Piero Chiara & Leo Perutz Reviewed by Victoria Pushkin Vertigo, the new crime imprint from Pushkin Press has got off to a flying start with its first batch of…
October 27, 2015 Rembrandt’s Mirror by Kim Devereux Reviewed by Victoria The first thing – inescapable – that you notice about this book is what a beautiful object it is. With gilt-tipped…
