Re-Navigation by Sue Parritt #BlogTour

A gloomy seascape is of little consequence to Julia, as a ferry transports her to an isolated Welsh island to undertake a Spiritual Development course. Soon, Julia finds herself surrounded by new friends and questions. As relationships deepen, so does Julia’s feeling that something crucial is missing from her life. As passion ignites and deep-buried …

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Charlie Laidlaw’s The Space Between Time

As in his previous novel, The Things We Learn When We're Dead, Charlie Laidlaw has taken on both the intensely personal and big sweeping ideas about time and space, examining what it is to be human, and situating his narrator’s existence in North Berwick within a much wider cosmic scale. I very much enjoyed The …

Gordon Kerr’s The Partisan Heart #BlogTour

Following his wife’s tragic death, Michael Keats’ grief is compounded by the discovery that she had been having an affair. This revelation leads Michael to Italy, his wife’s home country, where he becomes embroiled in tensions which date back to the 1940s. The violence and loyalties of the past reverberate down the years, and Michael …

What’s Left Unsaid – Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone’s novel begins with Joe telling us, from beyond the grave it quickly transpires, that he and his wife, Annie, have much to regret, that they hid the truth at many points in their lives. The consequences of what has been left unsaid are played out in this story, often to devastating effect. Annie …

Helen Matthews’ Lies Behind the Ruin #BlogTour

I’d thoroughly enjoyed Helen Matthews’ first novel, Leaving the Village, which focused on human trafficking, and her new novel is just as fascinating. Following a fatal accident at her husband’s firm, for which he is held responsible, Emma and Paul Willshire attempt to begin a new life in France with their daughter Mollie. This is …

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 …

Sally Nicholls’ Things a Bright Girl Can do

This is my second read from this year’s Carnegie Shortlist, and it is a far more complex novel than I had anticipated from the cover. Taking its title from a 1914 book, 301 Things a Bright Girl Can Do, Nicholls gives us three bright girls who each become a part of the struggle for female …

Kwame Alexander’s Rebound

Shortlisted for this year's CILIP Carnegie Medal Shortlist,  this coming-of-age novel, set in the summer of 1988, introduces us to Charlie Bell. He’s lost his dad, he doesn’t have the right trainers, and he’s full of the usual insecurities of adolescence. And yet he also has an excellent sense of humour and makes for a …

His Convenient Highland Wedding – Janice Preston #LochmoreLegacy

When I first heard about the new Mills and Boon continuity series, a set of four novels working their way back through time to tell the story of two warring Scottish clans, I was fascinated by the idea. Each written by a different author, the stories making up The Lochmore Legacy work back from the …

The Last Words of Madeleine Anderson – Helen Kitson

You wait for one intriguing novel, and a bagful arrive at once. I’ve been really lucky with the books I’ve picked up recently (I am quite choosy), and Helen Kitson’s accomplished The Last Words of Madeleine Anderson is one of my favourites. Gabrielle Price, the author of a critically-acclaimed novel in her youth, is now …