Our latest reviews
Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant
The popularity of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl has brought about a revival of interesting crime writing of a particular vein. To say more would be to give too much away here, but what a delicious revival it is.
In Sabine…
The Woman Upstairs Claire Messud
The Woman Upstairs begins with a fantastic five-page rant from its main character and narrator, Nora Eldridge. Nora is filled with rage and her energetic opening monologue sets the tone of the story to come:
‘I’m a good girl, I’m…
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is a fictionalised portrait of the woman who was married to the famous (or infamous) F. Scott Fitzgerald. It paints a far more realistic portrait of Zelda than Ernest Hemingway’s account in A Moveable…
Levels Of Life by Julian Barnes
Levels of Life is a cleverly crafted novella about love, grief and ballooning. Seamlessly blending history, fiction and memoir, Julian Barnes presents a raw and intimate meditation on his own experience of mourning, carefully balanced against whimsical and endearing adventures…
Harmless by Julienne van Loon
Harmless, Julienne van Loon’s third book, is a short, tight novella that deals with humans on the fringe. It follows eight-year-old Amanda and Thai born Rattuwat as they cross the suburbs of Western Australia to visit Amanda’s father, Dave…
Letters To The End Of Love by Yvette Walker
Yvette Walker, a fellow bookseller from Western Australia, has written a treat here for those who enjoy gently unfolding narratives, and characters who reveal themselves quietly. There is no sudden change of gear here. This is, after all, a novel…
A World Of Other People by Steven Carroll
Strong and reserved, Iris is a woman living in the middle of the London Blitz. She’s good at her job, but passionless about almost everything around her. Feeling useless in the war effort, she volunteers to be a watcher on…
Song For A Scarlet Runner by Julie Hunt
Nine-year old Peat and her big sister Marlie live in isolation at The Overhang, banished from the nearest settlement because of Peat’s heritage. There they tend cows and long for the infrequent visits from their aunt Wim. Peat has an…
Boy, Lost by Kristina Olsson
Bringing her journalistic skills to what is described on the cover as a ‘family memoir’, Kristina Olsson uses perfectly balanced prose to weave breathtaking beauty into this sad yarn.
As a 19-year-old, Olsson’s mother, Yvonne, got on board a train…
The Secret Lives of Men by Georgia Blain
In this new collection of 13 stories, Georgia Blain explores the diverse motivations of her male characters. The ‘men’ include fathers, brothers, husbands, soon-to-be-ex-husbands, partners, ex-boyfriends and lovers. In ‘Escape’, a young man being pursued by police tells his pregnant…
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