Fiction

Bolt from the Blue

In the era of the instant communication that comes with the ever-advancing technology it is easy to forget the art of letter writing where relationships were built, and destroyed, on well-travelled paper. With texting, emails, or messaging through social media, exchange is almost instantaneous. The miles between the conversation matter little in this form. Letters, however, are a somewhat forgotten mode of communication that involves more thought-out conversations, triggering also a certain amount of suspense between delivering and receiving. Jeremy Cooper’s Bolt from the Blue revives the letter as dialogue  in capturing the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter.

Dark Neighbourhood

Dark Neighbourhood is a collection bound by dread. ‘Dark’ is an appropriate word, as these stories enter the dark recesses of the minds of troubled characters as well as dark places.

Deep Wheel Orcadia

If it is true that there’s nothing new under the sun, then Harry Josephine Giles has the ability to create an utterly convincing mirage of originality by crashing old ideas into each other. Whatever you think of Deep Wheel Orcadia, it would be difficult to argue that this work could have come from a mind other than theirs.

Phenotypes

Phenotypes offers readers a fascinating eye into the complicated inner-workings of Latin America’s, and specifically Brazil’s, racial injustices in a way that those within the Anglosphere of literature can understand.

Falling Is Like Flying

Falling is Like Flying is Manon Uphoff’s autobiographical exploration of the traumatic sexual abuse experienced at the hands of her tyrannical father. With a courageous and extraordinary story to share, Uphoff returns to the dark labyrinth of her childhood to ‘catch sight of what I was there: the final doll in the matryoshka. The doll you can’t open.’ Despite her initial reticence, the recollections gather momentum as she relentlessly relives the trauma endured within a family that was both ordinary and deeply disturbed.

Late Driver

John Muckle (Shearsman Books Ltd., 2020); pbk, £12.95 There is nothing extraordinary about Highfields housing estate in Honiton, near Dunkswell, situated close to a military airfield in Devon which acts like a centrifugal force on the lives of the residents. Yet John Muckle, poet, writer, editor, animates the lives of the most ordinary characters in Read More

The Night-Side of the Country

Some books lead readers gently by the hand and others push them in at the deep end. In her latest novel, The Night-Side of the Country, Meaghan Delahunt opens with a standalone sentence designed to launch you firmly into the post #metoo waters: ‘The days drew in and the men fell hard.’ From that moment on, the novel delivers a highly charged and fast paced read.

Lessons in Love and Other Crimes

Elizabeth Chakrabarty’s first novel, Lessons in Love and Other Crimes takes the reader on a journey of racial hate crimes, through various lenses and differing angles. A surprising combination of charming romance and tense criminal investigation to narrow down a predator, these two genres put into play by Chakrabarty have a somewhat abrasive relationship with each other throughout the text, but their opposing forces are a perfect pairing.

Weather

Weather, the third novel from Jenny Offill, reveals a juxtaposition of modern anxieties: marriage and motherhood demand microscopic introspection at one end of the scale, while the amorphous threat of indistinct global destruction looms large at the other.

Summerwater

I read Summerwater in January 2021, on the eve of Brexit, and the shock has yet to wear off. Sarah Moss has six novels to her name and this, her most recent, poetically portends the dangers of casual prejudice. Set in a cabin park in the Highlands, a day of dreadful summer rain stretches out the solstice for the holiday makers.