From Lapland to Dundee (via London and Edinburgh), Hania Allen is well-travelled – in terms of writing at least. Her first novel, The Ice Hotel (2005), takes place in an ice hotel in Swedish Lapland; her subsequent books starring the detective Veronica ‘Von’ Valenti are set in London and Edinburgh and Hania’s current series, featuring Read More
A modern revision of a classic Greek myth is no longer a unique concept. Perhaps this is thanks in part to Madeline Miller’s bestselling debut novel The Song of Achilles, which helped to popularise the idea. Nor is it especially original any more to give maligned women from popular stories ‘the Wicked treatment’, painting them Read More
We step out of Tonic into the stream of pedestrians on Nethergate looking for just the right place to talk. By tacit agreement, we pass up Dundee Contemporary Arts and look in on the Phoenix; but Duncan McLean tows me along. I’m conscious we are drifting too far away from the engagement McLean needs to Read More
Diana Evans’ third novel, Ordinary People, dives deep into the domestic. It revolves around the struggling marital lives of two thirty-something couples living in London with their children. Melissa and Michael were once electric together, full of adventure. Stephanie and Damien were perfect opposites. However, as time passes the couples find themselves ‘living in the Read More
This is the debut novel from Lillian Li, a graduate of the University of Michigan, whose previous work has been published in prestigious titles such as the New York Times and Granta. It is an intergenerational family saga set in a US Chinese restaurant. The restaurant’s speciality is Beijing Duck, the waiters even wearing “duck-patterned Read More
The moors of Northumberland remain wild. Despite the encroachment of pylons and roads, the bogs still hold secrets of the past and dangers in the present. Sarah Moss evokes the stark beauty of the moors in her sixth novel, Ghost Wall. In fewer than 150 pages, she weaves a tale of prejudices, cruelty, rage, mob Read More
In her second novel, Sally Rooney delivers a compelling love story set in the West of Ireland and grounded in the political realities of recent times. Normal People was hotly anticipated, well received, and continues to see Rooney lauded as a generational writer. Nevertheless, the passivity with which the millennial label is applied within critical Read More
Modern feminist revisions of Greek mythology are in vogue. Following Madeleine Miller’s feminist reworking of Homer’s Iliad (The Song of Achilles, 2012) and The Odyssey (Circe, 2018), Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls also retells the story of The Iliad from a female perspective. Where Patroclus, Achilles’ steadfast companion, narrates Miller’s Trojan tale of Read More
Twitters for a Lark is not a single-author collection nor is it, strictly speaking, an anthology. What is hidden behind the colourful book cover emblazed with the words ‘Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors’ is a unique endeavour bringing together some of Britain’s most innovative and exciting contemporary poetic voices. The book contains collaborative Read More
‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant’ If Emily Dickinson’s much-quoted line is a poets’ mantra, not for the first time reviewing, I have to ask – surely its application is wider? When Picasso unleashed Guernica‘s terrible pain and fury, how could he tell that trauma, other than slant? A creative act, burning the Read More