Historical fiction isn’t my first choice of genre, but something about this book’s blurb appealed to me. …and the cover was lovely. (Yes, I’m afraid I do judge books by their covers, but only until I read them!) Pam Jenoff’s carefully researched novel, ‘The Last Embrace’, uses World War Two as a dramatic backdrop for […]
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, […]
Being sentenced to die is tough. Waiting for the sentence to be carried out is even tougher. Hannah Kent’s intriguing debut novel ‘Burial Rites’ focuses on one woman’s experience of this difficult time. What’s it about? Our perceptions of people and the power of story-telling. Agnes Magnúsdóttir has been condemned to die for her part […]
Sometimes, our reading choices benefit from external guidance. I began reading ‘The Siege’ out of a vague sense of obligation; I ended it with a sense of gratitude – to the author, who made what could have been Yet Another War Story beautiful and genuinely moving, and to the acquaintance who insisted I would enjoy […]