Robert Galbraith is a fantastic crime writer. Maybe it’s because he’s a she and she’s JK Rowling. Yes, the very same and yes, Harry Potter. Now that’s over with, and in case you were in any doubt – which frankly you might have been if, like me, you ever tried to read Rowling’s The Casual […]
I just can’t seem to help myself, but I always end up coming back to Lisa Jewell. She’s the Cadbury Dairy Milk of authors in my mind. Reliably delicious stories that never disappoint, always hit the mark, leaving you satisfied and yes, wanting more. Chances are that if I don’t know what to read, perhaps […]
I felt brave buying this book, fearing that it might be ‘worthy’ on the grounds of it having won the Booker Prize. That said, isn’t ‘worthy’ exactly what you should buy when your friend, who is also a reader, gifts you a $30 gift certificate for your favorite bookshop? Something that sits outside your norm, […]
There’s a certain currency to a life in London, just as surely as there’s a certain currency to being in your twenties and that’s exactly what Candice Carty-Williams’ novel Queenie so perfectly embodies. It’s also the reason why so many critics are likening this novel to Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, which so symbolized my […]
There are certain books that you read which are impossible not to find profoundly disturbing. I’m not talking here of murders stories or supernatural tales, but the rather more mundane. The novels where you find yourself questioning whether something so simple is actually possible? The problem being that, if you believe it is, then could […]
I’ve been reading a lot of Lisa Jewell books lately and they have made me realize that the reasons that I loved Lisa Jewell twenty years ago are different to why I enjoy her today. Upon reflection, I think that she has grown with me, with my own sensibilities. As I’ve aged and matured, so […]
Years and years and years ago, a book was published called Ralph’s Party. It was chick lit and I just loved it. The writer was Lisa Jewell and in very quick succession I demolished whatever she wrote. I remember my old boss and friend, Mrs N, who always seemed to be invited to the best […]
When I was young I lived in London. All over London. Moving, as young renters do, approximately every twelve or eighteen months. What initially seemed like a fun way to live soon became a drag as flatmates moved in with boyfriends or went travelling. As I read JP Delaney’s novel, The Girl Before, I was […]
Gah! I want to love to Sarah Waters’ novels, I really do, but in actuality I don’t. People tell me how wonderful they are, but I do find myself secretly wondering whether they have actually ever finished one. To me, they are like the promises you make at a book club, where readers coo over […]
A friend and I were recently discussing David Mitchell and just what a great career he has had. Her observation was that he was ‘a very male writer’, creative, logical and left of center. Although these characteristics are not only associated with male novelists, I could see what she meant. Many years ago, I read […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 