The Gustav Sonata (Longlisted, 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize)

Rose Tremain’s masterful, melancholic and ambitious novel is brimful of the sights and smells of post-war Switzerland, leaving little to the imagination.  Dispelling myths of serene neutrality, her book leads us though a winding path of uncertainty and angst, where “neutrality” is replaced with thorny indifference and there is little grey area between friendship and servitude. In this tantalising tale of adolescence, we follow Gustav Perle on his struggle of discovery. There are few heart-warming moments Read More

Days Without End (Shortlisted, 2016 Costa Novel Award)

In recent years, Sebastian Barry’s literary career has had tremendous world-wide recognition and success. The list of awards and nominations his works has garnered seems endless. From The Steward of Christendom (1995) which won him The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, through A Long Long Way (2005) (Man Booker Prize shortlisted), to one of his most Read More

This Must Be The Place (Shortlisted, 2016 Costa Novel Award)

 “[Claudette] doesn’t see a room, an alcove, a piece of flooring: she sees a work in progress, just waiting to be embarked upon.” This Must Be The Place. If there is one thing Maggie O’Farrell’s loyal readers expect, it’s a good disappearance. In this respect, her Costa short-listed This Must Be The Place follows in Read More

At Hawthorn Time (Longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize)

At Hawthorn Time is a narrative of belonging and identity, wrapped up in an elegiac homage to the natural world. It is the second novel of Melissa Harrison, a freelance writer and occasional photographer who lives in South London. She won the John Muir Trust’s ‘Wild Writing’ Award in 2010 and was a Writer In Residence at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, in January Read More

A Place called Winter (Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Novel Award)

“When a thing has always been forbidden and must live in darkness and silence, it’s hard to know what it might be, if allowed to thrive.” Patrick Gale’s talent for creating sympathetic characters who survive in dire circumstances is at its best in A Place Called Winter, his most recent novel, set in Edwardian England Read More

The Green Road (shortlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize)

This complex novel, longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, is set in Ireland and various global locations. It tracks the progress, spanning three decades, of a family of four siblings, and their relationship with their mother Rosaleen. Enright won the Man Booker in 2007 with The Gathering, a novel described by one reviewer as Read More