Difference between revisions of "Newest Literary Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B00474HVX4
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|title=Phineas Redux
+
|title=White Nights
|author=Anthony Trollope
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Short Stories
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|summary=It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]].  Having succeeded in parliament and achieved a paying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned to Ireland where he married Mary, his childhood sweetheart. He was fortunate to get a job in Cork (or Dublin - recollections may vary) and seemed settled into a life of domesticity.  To bring Finn back, Trollope had to kill off poor Mary and Phineas emerges in London as a childless widower with a legacy from an aunt who died at just the right time to allow the move to be possible.
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|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Jessie Greengrass
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|author=James Baldwin
|title=The High House
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|title=Giovanni's Room
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Literary Fiction  
|summary=Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to pass on its genetic material with the implied belief that your progeny will then pass on theirs. However, that train of thought is slowly seems to have fallen out of favour. Today's young generation are discovering that their parents and their parents' parents did not seem to think that far ahead. Or they did think that far ahead and thought "it's not my problem" or "there's nothing I can do". Raising a child and living in a world on the precipice of catastrophe is what drives ''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. This is not a science-fiction novel. This is our reality. This is the life our children and their children will have to live.
+
|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|isbn=1800750072
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|isbn=0141186356
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Charlie Carroll
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|author=Alba de Cespedes
|title=The Lip
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|title=Forbidden Notebook
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Melody Janie Rowe''  even the name is evocative of…probably of whatever we want it to be, and maybe that's the point.  To me the name sings of English folk music, but even in my use of that word English, I know I'm putting an emmet take on things.  And Melody Janie Rowe is anti-emmet.  
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|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.
|isbn=1529334179
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|isbn=1782278222
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003UH99X4
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|author=Ottessa Moshfegh
|title=The Eustace Diamonds
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|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation
|author=Anthony Trollope
+
|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It was generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didn't live long enough for this to become a problem.  After his death, his wife, Lizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession of a very valuable diamond necklace and was determined that she would not hand it over to her husband's executors.  She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutely, although the precise circumstances of the giving varied from telling to telling.  Lady Eustace was not a woman to whom truth meant a great deal.  All that was important to her now, she maintained, was her son.  And, of course, her diamonds.
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|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.
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|isbn=1784707422
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003L7TDMU
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|author=Matthew Tree
|title=Phineas Finn
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|title=We'll Never Know
|author=Anthony Trollope
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Phineas Finn is the son of Dr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer.  Phineas's interest is more in making influential friends than in becoming a lawyer and one of them, Barrington Erle, suggests that he runs for Parliament in the forthcoming election.  His father is not entirely in favour of this as members are not remunerated and it would be up to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding his election.  One of the doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the borough of Loughshane and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, elected by a small margin.
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|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.
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|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003A6W0FO
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|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Can You Forgive Her?
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|title=Fragility
|author=Anthony Trollope
+
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=On the surface ''Can You Forgive Her?'' looks deceptively simple: it's the story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other for her love. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Grey. When we first meet Alice she's on an extended tour of the continent with George Vavasor and his sister Kate. It's obvious that there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging the relationship as it would tie Alice to her. George wants Alice but it's a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness.  This thread is the story of a very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement.  You might not like Alice to start with but you will warm to her.
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|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
 +
 
 +
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Holland
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|author=Mosby Woods
|title=Sistersong
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|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sistersong is part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling of folk and fairy tales. These stories, for most of us, are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating the role of women. Sistersong is a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, the plot is handled with care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, to feel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is a masterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning to end.
+
|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?
|isbn=1529039037
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|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B002SQCYWQ
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|isbn=0571379559
|title=The Complete Barchester Chronicles
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|title=The House of Broken Bricks
|author=Anthony Trollope
+
|author=Fiona Williams
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the second time on the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a matter of minutes.  They're not ''quite'' as well known as the Austen books but they're an excellent follow on.
+
|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people.  Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks.  Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods.  Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money.  They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins.  Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father.  People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B077K6BQFD
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|author=Claire North
|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
+
|title=House of Odysseus
|author=Jane Austen
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|genre= Literary Fiction  
|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-one hours of listening for the purchase of one audio book. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin and they're presented in the order in which they were published.
+
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
 +
 
 +
The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.
 +
|isbn=0356516075
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Kay Chronister
 +
|title= Desert Creatures
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
 +
|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.
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|isbn=1803364998
 +
}}
 +
{{frontpage
 +
|isbn=1803363002
 +
|author= Eric LaRocca
 +
|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Horror
 +
|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)
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|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=If You Kept a Record of Sins
+
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.
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|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
|isbn=1939810965
+
 
 +
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.
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|isbn=0861546490
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
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|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
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|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=2.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?
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|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
|isbn=1529402697
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 +
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.
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|isbn=191458564X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571362672
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|author=Jennifer Saint
|title=Snow
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|title=Atalanta
|author=John Banville
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Well, at least you're a Wexford man.''
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|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''
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Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero.
  
So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957.  Osborne was master of the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk.  The niceties had to be established even when there was a Catholic priest dead on the library floor with some precious bits of his anatomy missing.  Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and this, along with his good-but-shabby suit, marked him out as of Osborne's class and obviously Protestant. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown, who - despite the different religions - was in the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House.  His horse was stabled there.
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Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.
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|isbn=1472292154
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Tahi Saihate
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|author=Amanthi Harris
|title= Astral Season, Beastly Season
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|title=Beautiful Place
|rating= 3.5
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|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We long for our past even though it is a place to which we can never return. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly Season'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lie. Her novel is a meditation on youth and how the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life-altering.
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|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country.  This is a place she spent her formative years.  It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home.  How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel.   Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.
|isbn= 1916277101
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|isbn=1784631930
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Imai Messina
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|isbn=178563335X
|title=The Phone Box at the End of the World
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|title=Sea Defences
 +
|author=Hilary Taylor
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= In the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his garden''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.'' It is a real place, a necessary place, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her story, that the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need it.
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|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children upHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson.  Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years.  Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed.  And then Hannah went missing.
|isbn=178658039X
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Amin Maalouf
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|isbn=1398515388
|title=The Disoriented
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|title=The Boy and the Dog
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|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown.  The result was complete and utter devastation.  The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread.  The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store.  He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0989715337
 +
|title=Papa on the Moon
 +
|author=Marco North
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybe. The falling out was a long time ago, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so.  Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next plane.  
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|summary=''Some frogs had gotten into the well.''
|isbn=B07ZQSK9CY
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''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.''
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 +
How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Joanne M Harris
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|author=Daisy Hildyard
|title=A Pocketful of Crows
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|title=Emergency
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|rating=4
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|summary=
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The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.
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|isbn=1913097811
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sally Oliver
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|title=The Weight of Loss
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|rating=4
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|genre=Literary Fiction
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|summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.
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|isbn= 086154112X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Natalia Garcia Freire
 +
|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults.  There are good books and poor ones.  And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones.  ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offersIgnore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy taleThis is no different.  It is an utter delight.
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|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight.  I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar withI have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation hereFrom the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.  
|isbn=1473222184
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|isbn=0861541901
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
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|author=Jennifer Saint
|title=A Life Without End
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|title=Elektra
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon.  And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE.  (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.)  Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy.  Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one.  Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?
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|summary='Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies.
|isbn=1642860670
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|isbn=1472273915
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Maryse Condé
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|isbn=8409290103
|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana
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|title=If Only
|rating= 4.5
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|author=Matthew Tree
|genre= Literary Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary= We live in a post- world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novel, ''The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequences.
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|isbn=1642860697
+
|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick.   It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Ukamaka Olisakwe
+
|isbn=B098FFFBH9
|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right
+
|title=Snowcub
|rating= 5
+
|author=Graham Fulbright
|genre= Literary Fiction
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at the trauma and heartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of the story.. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads the story, although Olisakwe writes in third person. This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|isbn=1911648160
+
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick.  Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Elliot Reed
+
|author=Yancey Williams
|title=A Key to Treehouse Living
+
|title=Crosshairs of the Devil
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment.  However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way.  Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER.  As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.
+
|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.
|isbn=1911545418
+
|isbn=0986031658
}}
+
}}  
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 09:06, 3 October 2024

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Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. Full Review

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Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

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Review of

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways. Full Review

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Review of

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

3star.jpg Literary Fiction

At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. Full Review

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Review of

We'll Never Know by Matthew Tree

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. Full Review

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Review of

Fragility by Mosby Woods

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Can you make a Yo birthing person joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

Fragility is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic Full Review

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Review of

A Whirly Man Loses His Turn by Mosby Woods

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back? Full Review

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Review of

The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

The House of Broken Bricks is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. Full Review

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Review of

House of Odysseus by Claire North

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

What could matter more than love?

The follow-up to the excellent Ithaca picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge. Full Review

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Review of

Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope. Full Review

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Review of

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca

5star.jpg Horror

Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a Big Bad, whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any Big Bad. Full Review

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Review of

Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity

Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town Thirst for Salt details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. Full Review

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Review of

Beautiful Shining People by Michael Grothaus

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.

Beautiful Shining People revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening. Full Review

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Review of

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta

Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero.

Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing. Full Review

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Review of

Beautiful Place by Amanthi Harris

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the score for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa. Full Review

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Review of

Sea Defences by Hilary Taylor

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. Full Review

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Review of

The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in. Full Review

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Review of

Papa on the Moon by Marco North

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Some frogs had gotten into the well.

Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.

How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on. Full Review

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Review of

Emergency by Daisy Hildyard

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise. Full Review

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Review of

The Weight of Loss by Sally Oliver

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself. Full Review

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Review of

This World Does Not Belong To Us by Natalia Garcia Freire

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. Full Review

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Review of

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies. Full Review

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Review of

If Only by Matthew Tree

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way. Full Review

B098FFFBH9.jpg

Review of

Snowcub by Graham Fulbright

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys. Full Review

0986031658.jpg

Review of

Crosshairs of the Devil by Yancey Williams

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work. Full Review

Move on to Newest Paranormal Reviews