The Women of Troy – Pat Barker

The sequel to The Silence of the Girls was always going to suffer by comparison in the action stakes. The immediate period after the violent sacking of Troy is marked by inertia - the Greeks are literally stuck waiting for the wind to change and allow them home. It is once again a marker of …

An Island – Karen Jennings

I'm so behind with the reading this summer (house move/job move etc) that I've had to accept defeat on reading all the Booker longlisted titles. All I can hope for now is that Klara and the Sun, Light Perpetual (which I loved but seemingly didn't get round to reviewing - that opening section is just …

A disrupted summer of reading

This summer we've moved house and jobs. I feel like I've been packing and unpacking for months. Annoyingly, the things that's gone (apart from a million books - we've downsized considerably on our shelving) is my time to read. I've also ignored the blog for so long that I've started to dread coming back to …

Wicked Little Deeds – Kat Ellis

I thoroughly enjoyed this gripping YA thriller, so much so that it has set the house move back at least a day. It has all the elements for a compulsive read - an old manor house, ancient family feuds, scores to be settled, and the possibility that Dead-Eyed Sadie is real. And Ellis doesn't skimp …

The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus – Ayşe Osmanoğlu

This story has clearly been a real labour of love, and the attention to detail is very impressive indeed. Focusing on the two years from 1903 to 1905, The Gilded Cage explores the realities of life for the members of the Imperial Family of the Ottoman Empire who have been imprisoned after Sultan Murad V …

The Lady in the Veil: The Talbot Saga – Allie Cresswell

I've really enjoyed the first two novels in the Talbot Saga - House in the Hollow and Tall Chimneys - and so I knew I was in for a treat with this new addition to the tale based on the Talbot family. This time, the house itself features only in the background; most of the …

Mirrorland – Carole Johnstone #Blogtour

The stories we're told as children often have, at their heart, a lesson, or a darkness that that has been diluted, made easier to digest. Johnstone's Mirrorland takes both these elements for her central elements, creating a modern thriller which taps into the fears and dangers of childhood. When Cat learns that her twin sister, …

This Eden – Ed O’Loughlin

I was lucky to get hold of a review copy of O'Loughlin's fast-paced This Eden, which is out today, and I raced through it. From the outset, we know that there is more to Michael's story than meets the eye. We're invited to study the evidence, and reminded that everything today is observed. 'Their first …

Mamma – Diana Tutton (British Library Women Writers)

In other hands, this could have been an uncomfortable (or perhaps horribly salacious) read, concerning as it does a growing connection between a woman and a younger man. But Tutton is too good a writer for that, and this becomes a fascinating exploration of motherhood, aging, and the often uncomfortable acknowledgement of desire in anyone …

In the Garden; Essays on Nature and Growing (Daunt Books)

'Here is a process, a mode of connection in which we understand that growth of any kind means that you must both work and wait. Water and wait. What happens or does not happen next will not be entirely up to you.' Victoria Adukwei Bulley This is the second collection of essays published by Daunt …