International fiction
House of Names by Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín’s new novel revisits Aeschylus’ Oresteia linked trilogy of plays, settling deep inside the story of Clytemnestra’s revenge on her husband Agamemnon after he returns to Argos from the Trojan War. It reads like a thriller: driven by female…
The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney
At their worst, literary sequels risk stretching a story beyond its boundaries. At their best, they give readers (and authors) the opportunity to revisit characters and settings that have already captured their imaginations. This sequel, the follow-up tothe absolutely brilliant…
The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova
Elizabeth Kostova’s The Shadow Land follows a young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, as she travels to Bulgaria in memory of her lost brother. On her first day there, she accidentally takes the bag of an elderly couple, finding in it…
The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby
The debut novel by Ryan Ruby might be called a ‘philosophical thriller’. What begins as a sentimental journey of a university friendship develops into a gothic, transgressive tale where the boundary between trust and morality is questioned. We see this…
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
It’s tempting to search for parallels between John Darnielle’s music (he’s singer-songwriter for The Mountain Goats) and his fiction. Universal Harvester, his highly anticipated second novel, follows the critically acclaimed bestseller Wolf in White Van. And like his…
American War by Omar El Akkad
Set in the near-distant future, a contentious fossil fuels bill ignites a second American civil war. What follows is brutal and bloody, and rings with the familiar. Unmanned drones patrol the skies, suicide bombers visit post offices, prisoners are methodically…
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
The first adult novel from YA writer Amy Engel is an uneasy thriller set in the decaying grandeur of a rambling estate in Kansas. For three generations, the daughters of the Roanoke family have been small-town royalty for the dustbowl…
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Heart’s Invisible Furies opens with Catherine Goggin being publicly shamed and violently thrown out of her church and country town in Cork. As she is hurled out the door she’s given a kicking by a priest who has secretly…
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
All Our Wrong Todays is Elan Mastai’s debut novel. A screenwriter by trade (the 2013 indie What If, starring Daniel Radcliffe, was written by him), Mastai’s first novel ambitiously adapts the film genre of indie rom-com into book-form, but…
Bright Air Black by David Vann
Dark, visceral, lyrical, sinister, sad: David Vann’s hypnotic reimagining of Greek mythology’s famously fiendish Medea is masterful – the expressive style is bizarre but brilliant. Vann’s poetic prose rushes inexorably to the tragic ending we know is coming, barely pausing…
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