There are times when we have all toyed with being terrible parents, tempted to do the wrong thing. For most of us however, the angel on our shoulder kicks in, reminding us of our parental obligation and ensuring beyond a shadow of a doubt that our child or children are taken good care of. Not […]
It’s very seldom that I bother to finish a book that I don’t think is any good. I’ve never been a believer in persevering with things you don’t enjoy and I’m not clear why people take an attitude towards books that they wouldn’t take towards a meal or a movie. For example I’ve never known […]
OK, I admit it. This is yet another crime novel set in Bristol. I believe that now makes three for this blog. If you have little knowledge of the UK, you must be envisaging that Bristol, the city I went to school in, is some kind of latter day Gotham City. A hotbed of crime […]
In the past I have been critical of novels written in reverse chronology. Last summer I devoted a chunk of time to reading The Rocks by Peter Nichols and when I sat down to write a review of the book, I simply couldn’t. The story was great, engaging in fact, but the chronology was all […]
Over the last few weeks and particularly whilst reading The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, I have found myself thinking a great deal about how much time I now spend reading crime or thriller novels. A couple of years ago this certainly wasn’t the case and that has led me to consider a […]
I could not wait to get my hands on The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins. This was the book that everyone in the UK was talking about and most of my friends seemed to have loved it. To me this had ‘summer read’ written all over it (in a way The Goldfinch did […]
I’m currently reading and actively enjoying The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, so why then am I sitting here and writing a review of What She Knew by Gilly MacMillan? Furthermore, why has ‘The Husband’ been sent away with What She Knew on his trip to the UK? The answer if of course simple. I opened […]
You by Caroline Kepnes is the very definition of creepy. It’s the kind of book that leaves you wanting to give yourself a good scrubbing after you read it. It’s the kind of book that makes you pretty sure you are never giving your children a phone, a computer, access to anything online ever again. […]
The great thing about having a blog is that I don’t have to be completely objective all of the time or indeed any of the time. Blogs by their very nature are personal, you read my blog because you either share my opinion on books, or you are a friend and maybe want to give […]
I have been duped and I really hate that feeling. M.R Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts is the kind of book that I never and I mean NEVER read. Why? Simply put, it’s a zombie tale and I loathe zombie stories. In my mind, and I really do appreciate that readers everywhere will […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 