There are a lot of islands off the North-West coast of Europe, so it is easy to get lost among them, or even mislay one. In Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone, John Lennon is trying to get back to his island in Clew Bay, in the very west of the West, but has forgotten which of them Read More
With her debut novel Jack in the Box, Hania Allen makes her pitch for a place in the highly competitive crime fiction genre. Set at the turn of the millennium, the novel follows DCI Yvonne ‘Von’ Valenti as she attempts to solve a murder which harks back to a number of unsolved cases from 1985 Read More
A debut work in the form of a collection of short stories is still a rarity; it would normally only be published well into a writer’s career, possibly after a number of novels. Of course the quality of the writing and the depth of talent of the writer can create an exception, and in Kseniya Read More
One Moonlit Night, Caradog Prichard’s only lyrical Welsh-language novel, has been re-released in this new edition. The novel is a haunting conjuring of the bleaker and more disturbing features of daily life in Bethesda, a small village in North Wales, during World War One. Retaining Philip Mitchell’s sympathetic 1995 English translation, it also includes two Read More
“A story unfolds. It doesn’t fall into your lap, all sorted. You miss the significant bits, or you might hoard and file details that just don’t seem to matter.” So says the idiosyncratic narrator of Ian Stephen’s wonderful novel, A Book of Death and Fish, and the author certainly follows this non-pattern of writing himself. Read More
Having been coaxed into seeing a horror film at a tender age, I’ve never since been able to gain enough distance from the gothic form to relish its thrills dispassionately. That half-glimpsed face in the darkened window or the unfamiliar shadow on the landing still results in one of those sudden irrational lurches of the Read More
Already an award-winning writer for her short fiction, Sara Baume’s debut novel is in contention for the 2015 Costa First Novel Award. Spill Simmer Falter Wither is set in a nameless coastal town over the course of a year, the book being split up into four “seasons”: the titular spill, simmer, falter and wither (or Read More
“A ‘companion’ piece rather than a sequel’, Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins moves from the perspective of Ursula Todd in the critically acclaimed and highly popular Life After Life to that of Ursula’s beloved younger brother Teddy. Having expected not to have survived his stint as a bomber pilot in the Second World War, Read More
A debut draped in drama and dark family secrets, Sarah Armstrong’s The Insect Rosary is far more exciting than the simple cover would suggest. The novel is set in Northern Ireland, in 1982, at the time of The Troubles. Although the historical significance contributes to the unsettling tone of the novel, this is a mere Read More
Twenty years after his last novel A Nice and Steady Job, Gregory Dowling returns to fiction writing with Ascension: a love letter to the City of Venice. Ascension follows Alvise Marangon, a young tour guide, as he offers to escort two English tourists in Eighteenth Century Venice and is then quickly embroiled in murder, conspiracies, Read More