Book Review - Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell
Four people come together 1960’s London to form a band in this exuberant and enjoyable novel about friendship, love and music, during a tumultuous period of social history. Lots of great cameos as well.
Book Review - The Saints of Swallow Hill - Donna Everhart
Strong work of historical fiction, following Rae Lynn and Del Reese in the turpentine camps of North Carolina, during the Great Depression. With both strong characters and a sense of place and time, could this be this years ‘Crawdads’?
Book Review - Boys Don’t Cry - Fíona Scarlett
Gritty and emotional tale of two brothers living in flats complex in Dublin. After Finn falls ill, gifted student Joe finds his world falling apart.
Book Review - Let Me Be Frank With You - Richard Ford
Four Stories make up this fourth instalment of Frank Bascombe, finding him dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and old age in his inimical funny, moving and wise way. Written in Ford’s trademark style, luminous and pitch perfect, he’s one of the America’s finest novelists.
Book Review - Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
A review of ‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee, a multi generational epic, that begins in a small Korean fishing village and ends in Tokyo in the 1980’s. Now on Apple TV, a sumptuous Kdrama epic.
Book Review - The Raptures - Jan Carson
Jan Carson’s book is about a mysterious illness affecting a group of school children in the North of Ireland in the nineties. Sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, it’s an incredibly readable book that looks at belief, family, community and trauma.
Book Review - The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly
A welcome return for Ballard and Bosch in this twisty, well plotted thriller from Connelly, now twenty three books into this brilliant series, that takes place in a challenging environment of police mistrust and protests.
Book Review - Rules of Civility - Amor Towles
This book is set in a wonderfully recreated and detailed New York, 1938, with intriguing, believable but flawed characters featuring in a story beautifully written. At times funny, elegant and poignant.
Book Review - Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
It seems that everyone has read Shuggie Bain by now so I thought it was about time I posted my review on an incredibly immersive novel that is gritty and depressing, but also about survival and love.
Book Review - The Survivors - Jane Harper
A review of Jane Harper’s ‘The Survivors’, set in a Tasmanian beach town. How does it compare to her previous bestselling thrillers?
Book Review - Nightmare Alley - William Lindsay Gresham
A dark, lurid, hard boiled bleak nightmare of a book with a seedy underbelly and a complicated and fascinating main character.
Book Review - Beautiful World, Where are you - Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney’s third novel focuses on the friendships and loves of four people finding their way in the modern world.
