The Vanished Bride – Bella Ellis #TheBronteMysteries

Taking as its premise the idea that the Brontë sisters embarked on brief careers as crime-fighting ‘detectors’ in 1845, the period between Charlotte and Emily returning home from Brussels and the three sisters becoming published authors a year later, this novel offers us a delicious new version of the famous siblings, superbly reimagined by Bella …

One Woman’s Year – Stella Martin Currey

I spent most of my time reading One Woman's Year feeling deeply envious of Currey’s life. This in itself is something of an admission, given that most of the chapters concern the home and looking after the family; it is only a few years ago that I was feeling deeply ambitious and determined to further …

The Summer Abroad – Ivan Brave

'It surprised me how wasted I was and how early it seemed. Half of Italy in one day, how much had we skipped? And yet we continued to blaze through.' Apologies in advance for the brevity of this review - it's down to the all-consuming day job, I'm afraid, but I have finally made time …

A Midsummer Knight’s Kiss – Elisabeth Hobbes

This was such a satisfying read to kick off the new year - in this story, Hobbes has revisited the Danby family, last seen in Redeeming the Rogue Knight and The Blacksmith's Wife. This time, we meet the next generation, Rowenna and Robbie. They've known each other since childhood, and I loved the way Hobbes …

Five favourite Agatha Christie novels

Given that’s it’s 100 years since Agatha Christie published her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles in the US (readers in the UK would have to wait another year to meet Hercule Poirot), I’ve put together a list of my five favourite Christie novels today. Admittedly, this is not quite as exciting as the …

My Top Ten Reads of 2019

The last third of this year has been a bit of a washout in terms of my reading - starting a new job has meant that I've barely read a word. I didn't touch much of the Booker list and I can only just about manage the review section of the paper at the weekend. …

The Order of the Day – Éric Vuillard

‘Great catastrophes often creep up on us in tiny steps.’ This short book is a brilliant and original look at the machinations and meetings which paved the way for the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, and thus the road to global war. It’s a chilling reminder that simply doing nothing is enough to allow such …

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ – Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

I'd be lying if I said that the recent use of this novel's famous opening paragraph in an advert (BT?) hadn't been a small nudge to finally get reading this classic. I have been setting the opening as a prac. crit. text for years, feeling like a complete charlatan each time because I have an …

Children of Fire – Paul CW Beatty #BlogTour #Review

Josiah ran flat out over the lip of the dell and off along the path weaving in and out of the trees to make the marksman’s aim harder. It was nearly forty seconds before the next shot came, this time well off target but the time between hearing the ball and the report was reduced. …

After the Party – Cressida Connolly

This was a surprising book – not the story I thought I was going to get, but all the more interesting for it. Rather than being simply a Gatsby-esque exploration of beautiful lives being ruined by scandal (don’t get me wrong – I love that sort of story), this becomes something far more political and …