Looking back, I’m pretty sure that over the years I have read umpteen Jojo Moyes novels, most enjoyably The Last Letter from Your Lover and Me Before You, which unquestionably took the her career into the stratosphere and really is a book that you should read if you haven’t already. Her rise as the doyenne […]
The idea of a story centered around a perverse concept of ageing or death is not in itself new. Certainly in recent years the film industry has shown us Brad Pitt ageing backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Blake Lively frozen in time in the beautiful Age of Adaline. Clare North gave […]
Reach for that box of tissues. You are going to cry. I fully acknowledge that I was late to the party with this book. For what seemed like years, I had seen it in Bookshop Santa Cruz and mentally labeled it ‘another war novel’. I approached The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, somewhat jaded after the […]
It’s the oddest thing, but sometimes I ‘save’ an unread book. Maybe it’s as simple as knowing that I have a trip coming up, or maybe it’s more complicated and I know that there will be a point when I just need to really lose myself in a book. All The Light We Cannot See, […]
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, by Kathleen Rooney, is a tough book to write about. I finished it over the weekend and I look back on it and smile, but equally, it’s a book that I almost abandoned several times. It came to me via the trusted source of book recommendations that is Ms M, […]
One of the curses of being a Brit and living in America is that many people assume you have a great interest in, or knowledge of, the Civil War. I have to admit that prior to moving here, the most time I had spent engaged in anything to do with this piece of US history, […]
As with a silent companion, this book snuck up on me. I finished it two nights ago and have been thinking about it ever since as, just like a Henry James novel, I’m not entirely sure what I just read. Was it a descent into madness, was it a ghost story, a betrayal? What? What […]
Sometimes you read a book and you just aren’t sure why you didn’t enjoy it more. Perhaps other things were going on in your life at the time or maybe you were just too tired. It’s hard to say. Sadly this is where I am with The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine. The more […]
I have a degree in Ancient History. I always feel like a bit of a fraud for mentioning it nowadays, as I’ve never really used it in any constructive way. I find that most people I meet in America are so much wiser and less esoteric in their life choices than the Brits. I chose […]
I have read every novel Kate Morton has written, not because I am a huge fan, but because they can guarantee me a certain type of satisfaction or pleasure. Each of her novels possesses a great band of characters, a well devised plot (if I recollect correctly, split between the present and the past), some […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 