Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan

'Children pulled their hoods up before facing out to school, while their mothers, so used now to ducking their heads and running to the clothes line, or hardly daring to hang anything out at all, had little faith in getting so much a shirt dry before evening. And then the nights came on and the …

A Terrible Kindness – Jo Browning Wroe

The story of a young chorister who becomes an embalmer is an unlikely premise for a bestselling novel - but this will be a bestseller and it is brilliant. I knew within the first few pages that it would be going on my Top Ten Reads for 2022 - I haven't felt like this about …

Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

This is going to be a reasonably short review - term has begin and reading has been suspended for the foreseeable - but I had to attempt to get my thoughts down about Piranesi, Susanna Clarke's first novel in sixteen years before heading off to plan and mark. I was tempted to just put 'wtaf' …

Daughter of the Sea – Elisabeth J. Hobbes #Blogtour

This is Hobbes' second novel for One More Chapter and it's the novel that shows just how versatile she is as an author. Taking her short story which had won the RNA Conference's writing contest in 2018 , Hobbes has spun a magical tale of love and belonging that captures perfectly the pull of the …