Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

I suspect that I’ll be a tad unpopular after this, and so I’ll get straight to the point. I liked this novel – I didn’t love it. Hear me out… I do see all the things that people have raved about, and it is clear that this is a much-loved novel for  lot of readers. …

An Interview With … T. G. Campbell

Good morning! Today, I'm talking to T. G. Campbell, author of the Bow Street Society novels about Victorian London, multiple narrators, and commemorative mugs. Tell us a little bit about the Bow Street Society. Where did the idea originally come from? The Bow Street Society is a fictional group of amateur detectives operating in Victorian …

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 …

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 …

Chris Brookmyre’s Fallen Angel #BlogTour #review

I love a book which starts with a murder - it establishes the genre swiftly and we all know where we stand. The dead man is unnamed – we’ll get confirmation of his identity halfway through the novel – and the plotting is superb from the outset. Brookmyre is a talented crime writer, setting up …

Stuart Turton’s The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle #Review

Oh my goodness! This book! I genuinely feel as though my brain is about to explode with all the questions that reading Stuart Turton’s brilliant debut novel has produced. This book is unlike any other I’ve read. I know you've all read it - why did it take me so long to get to it?! …

An Interview with … Jim Alexander

After something of a hiatus, it's lovely to be quizzing an author on writing tips and inspirations again. Today, I'm chatting to Jim Alexander about creative ideas, problems with desert islands, and his somewhat questionable approach to wine gums. His debut novel, GoodCopBadCop, is out now. Hi, Jim. Tell us a little about your writing to …

Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth – drugs, corruption, and dangerous ambition.

Forming part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project, Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth is a masterclass in how to keep your reader gripped, even when the tale you’re telling is so well-known. It’s never been one of my favourite plays to teach (I think I have to thank KS3 SATs for that), but this version, set in a …

Man Booker 2018 – Belinda Bauer’s Snap #Review

If 2017 was the Man Booker year of debut authors (and I still maintain Fiona Mosley's Elmet should have won), the notable feature of 2018’s longlist is the challenge to literary prize conventions – well, that’s how the narrative is playing out so far in certain circles. Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel, Sabrina, is certainly a …

70 Reviews: 5. Innocent House by P.D. James (Pocket Penguins) #review

Whereas the other volumes covered so far in this boxset series have worked well as stand-alones, this one is definitely a teaser and I’m going to hunting out the complete novel, Original Sin, as soon as I’ve finished this review. And here comes reading-confession-time again – this is the first time I’ve read a PD …