Kevin MacNeil (Polygon, 2016); pbk. £9.99 On a small Outer Herbridean island, the tiny community is obsessed with literature and plagued by social divisions. Everyone writes, the traditional greeting is “what are you working on?”, and once a year they host the Brilliant and Forever literary festival. The Brilliant & Forever is an unabashedly weird Read More
Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape, 2016); hbk: £14.99 Ottessa Moshfegh has won the Plimpton and Fence Modern Prizes for her shorter fiction, and her debut novel Eileen is now lined up for the Booker. One might ask what allows this author to dive in at the deep end of critical acclaim. If Eileen is anything to Read More
Under the Rose is a new collection of old short stories by Julia O’Faolain; the original publication dates range from her earliest collection in 1968 to a relatively recent collection in 2006. Plots, themes and structures vary greatly; some stories are taken from her childhood experiences, some from her adult relationships and some are entirely Read More
Moira Forsyth’s The Treacle Well is a novel which encapsulates the very essence of human nature when tragedy befalls. Penned with a remarkable understanding of emotion, this non-linear piece of prose mixes together the ingredients of realism and pathos to drive forward a fascinating and compelling plot. Through a series of lapses in time, the Read More
Jessie Burton’s debut novel has certainly attracted a lot of attention. One look at the list of awards and recognition the book has received is enough to entice any curious reader. The Miniaturist is also in the process of being translated into thirty-two different languages, an impressive feat for an actress/executive assistant who wrote a Read More
Originally from London but now living and working in Edinburgh, Pippa Goldschmidt is a former astronomer with a PhD in that field. Her transition into a writer has been very successful, garnering her several prizes and awards. Her debut novel The Falling Sky was the 2012 runner-up for the Dundee International Book Prize and her Read More
David Belbin has given us the pleasure of another marvellous novel: The Great Deception. After Amazon’s bestseller Bone and Cane and What you don’t know, Belbin strikes again to continue his exciting crime series. In sticking to his roots by placing the setting partially in Nottingham, the author adds a personal touch to this story. Read More
In her second piece of crime fiction, and providing a sequel and new story to her 2014 novel Jack in the Box, Hania Allen’s Double Tap sees protagonist Yvonne ‘Von’ Valenti, now a private investigator, faced with a missing person’s case. This instalment offers the intrigue of a murder case being investigated by Von’s former Read More
Maxim Biller was born in 1960 in Prague. In order to escape from The Prague Spring, his family emigrated to Germany in 1970. There Biller studied literature, then got involved in journalism which subsequently brought him the Theodor Wolff Prize, one of the most prestigious German awards in the field. An author of several story Read More
Gorsky is Vesna Goldsworthy’s first novel, although she has previously written a memoir and a poetry collection. She moved to London from Belgrade when she was 25 and she writes in English, which is her third language. Gorsky is a re-telling of The Great Gatsby, set in the twenty first century London. Throughout the novel, Read More