Year One starts off promising enough, with the coming of a plague (“The Doom”) which will SPOILER ALERT eventually wipe out eighty per cent of the world’s population. But it goes rapidly downhill when the ‘magick’ starts. Some people can suddenly light candles with a sweep of their hands, which is, indisputably, a handy skill […]
The Father by Anton Svensson
The blurb on this novel states The Father is an ‘unforgettable, thrilling crime novel of how three brothers came to be Sweden’s most wanted criminals, inspired by the true story and written by the fourth brother.” Well. Let’s hope the brothers are happy with it. It’s a good novel, well written, and manages to convey […]
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
This book will forevor be associated with the excellent Netflix series made after it, and that can only be a good thing. The original book, set in Australia, takes you inside the lives of three woman dealing with young children and the emotional guagmire that comes hand in hand with them, plus domestic violence, infidelity, […]
Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood
Ah, I loved this one. It traces Ernest Hemingway’s relationships with each of his four wives and paints a believable portrait of each of them and the times they lived through. All of the Mrs Hemingways are interesting, intelligent, memorable women in their own right. You have to wonder what they all see in him. […]
An Isolated Incident by Emily Maquire
An Isolated Incident has been marketed as a thriller but it’s actually not; it’s a study in grief. Bella Michaels is brutally raped and murdered near the small Australian town where she lives and her sister, Chris, must somehow live through her grief. It’s not so much a whodunnit as a study in how violent death […]
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Difficult to describe this one; it’s about a tiger entwined within an old woman’s dementia, and also within her relationship with her carer. Really it’s about the vulnerability that encompasses us all as we age. It’s surprisingly beautiful and all too real. It won a lot of awards for first time novelist Fiona McFarlene, and […]
See What I have Done by Sarah Schmidt
See What I Have Done gets inside the head of Lizzie Borden, who presumably murdered her father and stepmother in 1892 despite being acquitted at the subsequent trial. Being inside Lizzie’s head is an oddly compelling but uncomfortable place to be. The book is well written but it’s difficult to love something so odd and […]
Our House by Louise Candlish
Wow, this one is a winner. Fi Lawson is stunned to see a moving truck outside her house when she arrives home one day, with a woman inside claiming she and her husband are the new owners of Fi’s house. And you know what, they are, thanks to Fi’s f*$ked-up husband. How and why this […]