Impulse book purchases. Sometimes they’re a great idea and you know almost from the first page that you’ll be buying the up the author’s entire back catalogue / future releases. Sometimes it’s better to read a few reviews first to get a better feel for the contents than the cover and blurb provide. ‘When we […]
Delays at the dentist? Traffic on the tube? It must be bonus reading time. Bonus reading time is what happens when you’re meant to be doing something else but there’s a hiccup and instead you get to read. This is why I always keep a book in my bag; you never know when you might […]
What if the past didn’t happen the way you thought it did? What if you could dig up the truth? Would you want to? Should you? What might you learn if you did? Such is the premise of Harlan Coben’s seventeenth crime novel, ‘The Woods’. What’s it about? Twenty years ago four teenagers enjoying summer […]
The Bees: accept, serve and obey. Or else. I enjoy reading dystopian fiction and I like bees, as long as they stay next to the flowers and away from my children, but I’ll be honest: I think it was the brilliant yellow cover that first attracted my attention. What’s it about? Flora 717 is a […]
A tale of murder, madness and The Oxford English Dictionary. Such is the full title of Simon Winchester’s intriguingly titled ‘The Surgeon of Crowthorne’, a book all about, well, murder, madness and the OED, though there’s more on the latter than the former. What’s it about? Lexicographer James Murray is attempting to compile the first […]
Self-editing is definitely the most difficult kind of editing. Recently I reviewed Lynn Shepherd’s excellent novel ‘Tom-All-Alone’s’, a literary murder mystery with its roots in Charles Dickens’ ‘Bleak House’. I had a lot more to say about it than could comfortably fit in one post, so below are some more thoughts about the narrative style […]
If you like murder mysteries, detective stories and mock Victorian fiction, Lynn Shepherd has a treat for you. Meet Charles Maddox, an honourable man fighting for truth and justice in a world where money means power and lack of either can be deadly. What’s it about? London, 1850. Charles Maddox has been forced to leave […]
Sometimes there is no safe place. So begins the blurb for Tana French’s fourth novel, ‘Broken Harbour’, in which it gradually becomes clear that a family’s house and their relationship with it has played a significant role in their murders. What’s it about? A family of four have been found slain in their own home. […]
Some books are comforting diversions from reality. Recently I spotted Jill Mansell’s ‘The One You Really Want’ on my ereader and remembered that I used to enjoy her books sufficiently to have purchased several. Despite this not featuring on my current TBR list, it jumped to the top of my Actually Reading list due to […]
Sometimes you see a book and just know you’re going to love it. That’s how I felt when I spotted ‘Gooseberry’ by Michael Gallagher on Librarything. The fact that I had yet to read either Wilkie Collins’ ‘The Moonstone’, which is the inspiration and touchstone for Gallagher’s novel, or anything previously written by Gallagher himself, […]