'The figure is dressed in black. Something is covering their face. It resembles a gas mask; the same basic form, but it's missing the filter at the front. Instead, there's a thick rubber hose running from nose to mouth. A connector. The hose is ribbed, black; it quivers as the figure shifts from foot to … Continue reading The Sanatorium – Sarah Pearse
The Searcher – Tana French
Whilst I enjoyed The Wych Elm (I was fascinated with the gothic story behind the title), I preferred The Searcher - the ending feels more plausible, and the whole thing is more tightly structured. Cal Hooper has handed in his Chicago Police Badge and upped sticks to a remote village in the west of Ireland. … Continue reading The Searcher – Tana French
The Wild Silence – Raynor Winn
Since finishing the final page of The Salt Path last year, I've been waiting to find out what happened next. The Wild Silence is, in my opinion, even more marvellous. I loved the walk that structured her first story, not least because it's all such familiar terrain. But this is perhaps a more structurally complex … Continue reading The Wild Silence – Raynor Winn
The Lying Life of Adults – Elena Ferrante
'Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly.' A more condensed narrative than the rather sprawling Neapolitan Quartet, Elena Ferrante's new novel is a classic bildungsroman with an interesting gothic flavour. As with the Quartet's main figures, our new narrator, Giovanna, is focused on her growing awareness … Continue reading The Lying Life of Adults – Elena Ferrante
Q & A – H. A. Leuschel
H. A. Leuschel has got a new novel out. To find out more, I asked her over to the blog for a chat. Morning, Helene! I hope your Sunday has started well! Tell us a bit about Lizzie in The Memories We Bury. Lizzie is a young Scottish woman with a passion for music who, … Continue reading Q & A – H. A. Leuschel
The Death of Francis Bacon – Max Porter
Once you’ve read The Death of Francis Bacon, you can’t help feeling that only Max Porter could have tackled the imagined thoughts of this violently visual painter. As already seen in Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Porter’s style suits the noisy, graphic style of the painter himself. In a way, the layout … Continue reading The Death of Francis Bacon – Max Porter
Just Bea – Deborah Klée #Blogtour
On the face of things, Bea Stevens is very different to Deborah Klée’s previous heroine, Angie, in The Borrowed Boy. But scratch a little deeper and there are similarities – Bea may well have learned to adopt a glossy veneer, but she still feels very much the outsider looking in at the prestigious Hartleys department … Continue reading Just Bea – Deborah Klée #Blogtour
Advent – Jane Fraser
There's a special sort of joy in reading a novel set in a landscape you love and know well. Better yet if the novel is beautifully written by an exciting new voice in literature. And Jane Fraser's debut novel, published by Honno Press, is just that. Even if you don't know the Gower before you … Continue reading Advent – Jane Fraser
Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter
This has been on my radar since I found and fell in love with Lanny, Porter's second book. And man, this one has undone me. It's unlike anything else I've read, a verse narrative exploring the aftermath of loss, and the route grief takes when your bereavement counsellor is a large, rude, trickster crow. It … Continue reading Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter
Circles of Deceit – Paul CW Beatty #Blogtour
Circles of Deceit is the second in the Josiah Ainscough Casebook series and, like the first novel, Children of Fire, is a brilliantly imagined visit to Nineteenth century Northern England, a period rich in drama and social change. This time, the backdrop is the General Strike of 1842 and the struggles of the Chartist movement. … Continue reading Circles of Deceit – Paul CW Beatty #Blogtour
