Grace and Courage
~ The Stars are Fire, by Anita Shreve ~ We start this novel with Grace and Gene in a pretty little house on the coast of Maine, with their toddler Clare and baby Tom. It seems a perfect little family...
Lisa
Colonial Singapore
~ Tanamera, by Noel Barber ~ When I first saw this title, I didn’t recognise it straightaway, being more accustomed to reading it as 2 separate words: ‘Tanah Merah” – Merah is red, and Tanah is soil, land, even territory....
Biting Satire
~ At Last, by Edward St Aubyn ~ This is the last book in Melrose series, based on the dysfunctional, charming, devastated and devastating Patrick Melrose. The cover blurb calls it a “masterpiece of glittering dark comedy and profound emotional...
The Food of Love
~ The Music Shop, by Rachel Joyce ~ Another charming love story from Rachel Joyce (author of the Harold Fry and Queenie novels, and Perfect), this time, set within the backdrop of music. Frank is our protagonist, a large, dear...
Understated Excellence
~ Abide With Me, by Elizabeth Strout ~ Even from the opening lines and pages of this novel, it was immediately clear why Elizabeth Strout has such an excellent reputation as a writer. The narrative is beautifully unfolded and paced,...
Foster Care Indictment
~ My Name is Why, by Lemn Sissay ~ This novel is an indictment of the children’s foster care and care services in UK. Sissay tells the story of how he was taken away as a baby from his Ethiopian...
A sassy, articulate, intelligent, flighty woman
~ Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams ~ Queenie Jenkins is a young black woman (2nd generation Jamaican) from south London (the geography is important to her) working in journalism (The Daily Read, culture section) in London. London’s multiculturalism and segregation are...
Exacting rules for single women
~ A Single Thread, by Tracy Chevalier ~ Another triumph by Chevalier. This is a beautifully worked piece almost in miniature, set in Winchester in the early 1930s, against the backdrop of a country still recovering from the great war...
Marsh Girl Resilience
~ Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens ~ Kya is a fiercely lovable protagonist in her strength, resilience, vulnerability, and thirst for knowledge. This novel is set in two periods, but in the same geographical location – the marshes...
Raw Poetry
~ On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong ~ Gorgeous is a good description for the beautiful language in this novel. But difficult could be another word, to describe the storyline. I confess I read the novel while only...
Poignant and Prosaic
~Inheritance, by Jenny Éclair ~ This tale encompassing 4 generations begins with the inauspicious marriage of in the 1930s of aristocratic but skint Teddy Carmichael (the younger son of a younger son) and Margaret (Peggy) Oppenheimer, a wealthy American. Despite...
Brown Man in a White Man’s City
~ Amnesty, by Arvind Adiga ~ Amnesty is vintage Adiga. Need I say more? After the disappointment of Selection Day (which was by no means awful, just less accessible!), it is a joy to go back to the powerful, punchy,...
Love, family, nature
~ A Parchment of Leaves, by Silas House ~ An Irish descendent riding up Rosebud Mountain to clear the land passes an eighteen year old Cherokee girl of such stunning looks that he cannot get her out of his mind:...
Life changes in Nairobi
~ A Change in Altitude, by Anita Shreve ~ Patrick (from Chicago) and Margaret (from Boston) meet and fall in love, and after 2 years together – “married five months” – move to Kenya. Paul is a medical man who...
Dangers of oversimplification
~ How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position, by Tabish Khair ~ A very erudite and charming little novel from beginning to end. ,Our unnamed narrator-protagonist is not unlike the author himself, a South Asian who lives in...
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