In parts I actively disliked this; set in post-apartheid South Africa, Deirdre is a mess with no apparent desire to make changes. Her mother, in a care home, is convinced her presumably dead son is visiting her. Deirdre never visits. There‘s a drought, everyone is dirty, drinking too much. This was an unpleasant read, yet at the same time draws you in. I didn‘t love it, I‘m glad it‘s done, yet it‘s niggling at me and I guess that‘s the point 👇

Set in a small town in the Mojave desert, Driss, is found dead at the side of the road. Was it a hate crime? Told from alternating perspectives the story winds back and forth, touching on Driss‘ life, but also his family and neighbours, whilst also trying to discover the cause of his death. For me, this was about grief, combined with small town tensions. The whodunnit element I felt was less successful for me. Overall though, I enjoyed it.

A great story of the family dynamics between four sisters, reflecting on their childhood, addiction and troubled parents, I tore through it. Her books seem to be targeting/resonating with a younger generation of female readers and I quietly wonder if she might turn out to be their Maggie O‘Farrell, thinking back to the vibe of MO‘Fs very early books. Watching with interest!

A very Booker Prize-ish book - it was a bit tricky. This is a series of stories spanning 1908 to 2025 covering love, both romantic and between parent and child, loss, war and science. What I struggled with was the telling, individual stories moving back and forth in time, the narrative in each story also moving around from paragraph to paragraph. Lovely in parts, but it was harder work than I‘m willing to invest.

When you‘ve adored Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, do you delve into the author‘s backlist, or keep the love with TTT? Turns out it is ok to keep reading, I absolutely loved this one too. A completely different book to TTT, this was short, sweet and gave me several love stories I didn‘t know I was looking for. It leaves the best possible bookish-hug feeling. If you need a winter pick me up, highly recommend 💙

With a blurb that references One Day and Normal People, this just about lives up to that. A sweet story of perceived “bad boy” Will, studious Rosie, and Rosie‘s twin, Josh, as they finish sixth form and try to find their way. It really is a lovely story - with that ever elusive romance without the cringe factor - yet I‘d say this didn‘t quite reach the heights of Sally Rooney genius for me, I agree more with the One Day vibes.

From the blurb this story sounded like my worst nightmare. First third, nope, can‘t do it. Mother is up in the night with young kids, husband not there, realises there‘s someone else in the house. No, not 300 pages of a house invasion with kids in the mix. Yet then the story changes, we go back into various parts of the narrators life, stories slowly evolve. A third in I was suddenly so invested I read the rest almost in one sitting.

Started out strong, limped to 786 pages somewhat exhausted. I am not the intended audience - my younger self would have adored the page-turning storytelling and world building, but this older, slightly jaded reader didn‘t fall for it. Right now, I never want to read about a dragon again, and I‘m glad Violet‘s narrative voice can begone from my head. On the other hand my 17 yo is desperate to get his hands on it, and that is how it should be 🐉

The premise was strong, and intriguing. Jivan comments on Facebook then finds herself arrested for playing a part in a terror attack. Her former teacher is being pulled into nationalist politics, Jivan‘s student Lovely could possibly help her, but no one is asking. There‘s a lot being said here, yet at the same time I felt a strange disconnect from the three main characters, and from how their stories interconnected. Overall, mixed feelings.

Kate is struggling with self-isolating in November 2020, she breaks and goes for a forbidden walk in the hills of the Peak District. Her 16 year old son Matthew is home alone when he realises she‘s gone and turns to their elderly and vulnerable neighbour Alice. The fourth character is mountain rescue volunteer Rob, helping search for Kate. A third in, I was racing through this desperate to know the outcome. And when it comes, it packs a punch.

Visitors to a Tokyo cafe get to travel in time if they sit on a certain chair and follow very specific rules. Four segments follow four different people as they travel, along with snippets of their back stories, and the stories of those who work in the cafe. The premise is intriguing and some of the stories sweet, yet the delivery not so much so. It dragged, despite being a short book, I lost track of who was who and found the narrative overdone.

I went into this a bit judgy - the Yorkshireness of the characters feeling overdone, and I was unsure if I liked the true story of the Yorkshire Ripper being the backdrop (was it insensitive to the victims?) - yet it won me over and had me having a little cry too. Sweet characters, the resolutions I wanted and a bit of nostalgia for childhood in the 80s.

A sweet, short and sharp little book that in large part I loved. Yet holding me back was a quite intense dislike of the main character that I never quite got past.

Oh goodness, what do you say about the Booker Prize winner? This is beautiful writing and an interesting premise, I get it. However, purely based on what I want from a book, it was a skim read for the main part with my focus being on the rare moments of character and their narratives. I‘d have read a longer book about the astronauts and their back stories but 135 pages about what they can see of Earth from their spaceship was enough for me.

At the start I was totally lost and nearly bailed. I just couldn‘t get on with the prose and the number of characters and the tangents we take to hear snippets of their back stories just had my head spinning. Yet as with all good books, and when I gave it the time, it pulled me in, and by the end I was heartbroken, heart-warmed, and had a tear on my cheek. I defy you not to fall for the characters of 12 year old Dodo and his friend Monkey Pants.

A courtroom drama with family and friendship dynamics plus immigration, neurodiversity and science. This is my second book by this author, both have a similar vibe which I like but also find a bit intense. This felt too long and not as page-turner-ish as the blurb promised, or as much as her second book, which overall I think I enjoyed more, perhaps as I disliked all the characters here! Still, an interesting read and a pick overall.

A great read, I really enjoyed this. The story follows the quirky, bohemian family of rock star Matthew Radlett who now lives a reclusive life in the country, and predominantly his daughter Linda as she lurches through various love affairs. Funny and sweet this was a hug of the book and I loved every character no matter how improbable. (However. The final page takes some getting over, no spoilers but be warned.)

A perfect read to start the New Year; I love Patrick Gale. Here the writing is incredibly gentle and I loved how the chapters dipped in and out of the characters lives at different ages whilst keeping the overarching narrative, it worked perfectly. I was gripped and had the time to read in huge chunks, completely absorbed. It‘s about faith, morality, family and love. It‘s quiet, sad, moving and also uplifting. I absolutely loved it.

Phyllis is living a perfectly normal middle class suburban life in the 60s when her attention is unexpectedly caught by a young family friend and her life upends. From there, an intriguing cast of characters and a slow unravelling of the suburban life. I particularly liked teenage daughter Colette; Phyllis herself less so. The second half the interest really ramped up for me, overall a great read.

Eva and her family have fled Russia for Europe but WWII is brewing. A charismatic and mysterious Englishman takes Eva under his wing and recruits her as a spy from where she becomes fully immersed in WWII subterfuge in the US. Later in 1970s Oxford, the truth of her past is slowly revealed to Eva‘s daughter. It was consistently absorbing and then became so gripping I couldn‘t look away. I enjoyed the spy focus being the US rather than Europe too.

Nope. Christmas cosy this is not. It goes hard on the malice; a family group reunited for Christmas, but why they are reuniting is the question given their most tenuous of familial ties and their constant sniping. Constant, exhausting sniping. There were some interesting threads but not enough to give me Christmas cheer. (However I enjoyed the cover although I‘m not sure Meg Mason and I read the same book. This is NOT comparable to the Cazalets!)

I‘d been ambivalent about the Kristin Hannah books I‘d read before this one, but I couldn‘t quite resist a bit of Russian history and the suitably wintery cover. And it was a good one! Moving between the present in an American apple orchard and the 1941 siege of Leningrad, I was thoroughly pulled into the family dynamics and awful backstory. Yes I cried. Easy yet gripping reading, a great one to hunker down with in a storm.

A fairly standard police procedural but set in 2051: near future yet not disappearing into dystopia. Very readable, the near future element entirely realistic and scary, the “figuring out the crime/scare vibes” just what I wanted.

I‘ve enjoyed this trilogy, which focuses on the civil unrest during the mid- to late 1600s rather than the Tudors of her earlier books. They‘ve spanned witch hunts, kings coming and going, forging a life in the Americas, and, in this book, slavery and freedom, wealth and injustice and a truly despicable character you‘ll love to hate.

On the whole I really enjoyed this family mystery (and much more besides). There were great elements and I was largely kept guessing in a good way. I really enjoyed the thoughtful exploration of language, race and happiness. Only complaints were it felt long with some points overly laboured, particularly the science-y bits. It was a great one to discuss in our book group. Will definitely read more from this author and just bought Miracle Creek.

Goodness this one hits hard. Dystopian fiction that feels not many miles from our reality. I‘ve always enjoyed dystopian fiction but this is bleak; watching Eilish‘s normal life unravel, the decisions made too late, her desperate attempts to protect her children from the state. The questioning as to how you would respond to these circumstances. An extremely powerful way to tell a terrifying story💔

The writing is beautiful. I immediately took to the narrator‘s voice and its unusual detached feel. But maybe because of that detachment I wasn‘t immediately emotionally invested. However as the story moved on I became gripped, and also sad and distressed at the fate of Sashi and those around her. The second half was excellent; the final pages such an angry yet reflective look back on the war, that it fully won me over, as did the author‘s note.

Like the author‘s debut novel - Girl A - this cannot be described as a pleasant, easy read, but it is compelling. A school shooting in the Lake District leads to “truthers” and conspiracy theorists questioning whether it ever really happened. Sadness abounds, secrets slowly emerge. This isn‘t easy reading, but it is timely/zeitgeisty and is page-turningly, can‘t-look-away good.

This has everything I usually love in a book…and yet, I didn‘t love it. I have no idea why really. Wrong timing? I know nothing about Our Town, the play the story centres around (but I never want to read about Emily or the Stage Manager again), I felt nothing much for the characters and just felt distanced from the whole thing. In fact I nearly gave up. The last 50 pages or so kind of won me round but I still feel ambivalent.

I really enjoyed this. An artist couple living in isolation on Cape Cod (the real life artists Jo and Edward Hopper) get drawn into the lives of two boys and the extended family. The boys are heartbreaking and delightful; I loved seeing artist Mr Aitch get drawn out of himself by them. I pretty much hated everyone else, but in the best bookish way. There‘s a lot not told, it‘s left to the reader to interpret. It‘s slow, thoughtful and gentle.

This is page-turningly unpleasant, depicts perfectly the mundanity and awfulness of school and teen bullying, brilliantly reflects a Leave-voting town and its hierarchy and residents. Yet I also had issues with it. The pages and pages of the minutiae of teen lives was too much, the characters within the town were so obvious it must have been intentional but felt clunky to me. Yet despite those issues, overall this was an intriguing read 👇

William Thornhill makes a mistake and is shipped to Australia. He and his fellow settlers face up to life on colonised land, as slowly those indigenous to the land push back against them. There‘s a terrible sense of the inevitable, a deep frustration towards the settlers ignorance, a foreboding of what we know must come to pass. I found this incredibly well told and the tension mounts perfectly but to a really awful ending; you can‘t look away.

“Full of big ideas and marvellously peculiar characters.” Oh I did love this. It was quiet, gentle, crazy, peculiar, completely absorbing. I fell hard for all those characters and it broke my heart 🐍

I‘d heard good things about this but didn‘t actually know what it was about and went in blind. Ooof, it was NOT what I thought it would be. I got a really great, intriguing, interesting (yet unpleasant and unsettling) story with another layer unfolding just as I thought I‘d got the better of the plot line. I‘m going to say I thought some elements of Sally were perhaps a little heavy handed, however niggles aside this was a great read.

What a lovely, sad, well-told story. Anh and her two younger brothers are sent away from Vietnam with the rest of the family to follow later. Yet only Anh and her brothers make it and from there they move from refugee camp to camp, before finally being resettled in 1980s Britain. I loved every bit of it; the compassionate storytelling, the clean, clear writing and the simply told and unflinching look at the refugee experience.

A lovely book, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I do love a good family saga. This had a similar quiet quirkiness of an Ann Tyler novel (always a good thing). The Little Women analogy was generally lost on me and, I think, unnecessary and occasionally it tipped into being saccharine, but I‘m always hyper-critical of anything being too sweet, so that‘s on me. The final chapters nearly broke me.

A reread, almost 30-years to the day that I last read it for A-Level English Literature. Wanted to reread before Sandra Newman‘s retelling, Julia. I loved it then and I loved it again now. Can I feel another Orwell deep dive coming on?

“The quick anger of these men was not useful.” I do love a retelling and this one - or rather, an “untelling” - is a good one. For what happens before Romeo meets Juliet? What passes between Romeo and fair Rosaline? Here we find out in all its gory, unpleasant detail. I‘m coming at this as a lover of historical fiction, not a Shakespeare scholar. In that context, great as a retelling, equally good as standalone historical fiction.

Hmm, on paper everything about this was my sort of book. A close knit family, secrets slowly emerging… Yet something was just a bit off about it. I never quite felt absorbed by the characters, and actively disliked matriarch Margo; I just could not get past her constant self-absorption and didn‘t buy into the great Richard-Margo love affair that the entire story centres around. It‘s readable but forgettable I‘m afraid…

This got off to an excellent start and I was completely gripped. I do love a good courtroom drama. I enjoyed the switching perspectives and differing timelines too. However! There is a but (see comments). And so, once those doubts hit me, it threw me off and I didn‘t quite get back on track. Still a great rollercoaster of a story however…

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of Helena‘s growing love for Greece in the late 60s and 70s, combined with her fear of her Greek grandfather and the slow unravelling of his life and past, intertwined with her growing knowledge of archaeology and appropriation. Easy reading, interesting and completely transports you to Athens and the Greek islands - perfect reading for a sunny end of August weekend.

A plane crashes, survivors are trapped in it, it sinks into the ocean, where IT LANDS ON THE VERY EDGE OF A SEA CLIFF. With barely any oxygen left. Goodness me, despite being fiction, this is as claustrophobic and terrifying as it sounds, I could barely breathe. I survived it, but was on high alert for every one of the 287 pages and now need a lie down. If you like that vibe, definitely read it, it‘s faced paced and well written.

I really enjoyed the premise of this story, and there were parts I whizzed through, but overall I found it long and at times difficult to follow, and very nearly gave up. Similar to how I felt about Wolf Hall in fact. I think this was a little too literary for me and I‘m disappointed as it‘s a story I wanted to hear. I deliberated but am giving it a light pick as I appreciated the quality of writing. Moving on…

Not my usual genre, but I really enjoyed this. No eye-rolling, as there often is, just a gripping story that I fully bought into.

Very readable, often intriguing, however this also left me a little puzzled. At times it was a family drama, others a coming of age story, it touched on dystopia, and was also quite science-y. Overall I liked it; I enjoyed the writing which had a quiet gentleness to it, “an elegance”, I‘ve seen it described as. I came away sad and feeling slightly muddled, thinking a lot, which isn‘t a bad thing.

This follows Min as he struggles to understand his girlfriend Yu-Jin‘s apparent suicide, alternating with chapters from Yu-Jin‘s perspective. The style worked here, I enjoyed the slow unfolding of Yu-Jin‘s story and the pressures she was under. I loved returning to Korea, this time Seoul. My only complaint is that it was so very slow I became impatient with it at times but overall, despite the subject, a sweet, quiet, gentle read.

Once again reading retellings of classics, but wait! I have actually read and enjoyed Jane Eyre. As the title suggests, this is the story from Edward‘s perspective. We meet him as a young boy, and follow him up to and through the story we know of him meeting and falling in love with Jane. Your heart will break for him as a boy, you may dislike him as a young man, he may/may not redeem himself; thoroughly enjoyed it.

A book group read; I really liked this lovely, sad, sweet book. I will always fall for a mother/son trope; this one had me 😭

A gripping, page-turning read on first impressions; think 24 vibes, it was going well. However there was eye-rolling and definite overuse of the word evil. Then about two thirds in it takes an unexpected turn and I was like, WHAT book am I now reading?! Not the book I wanted to read! I kept reading - the final section tries to pull it around - and it was gripping in parts, but overall mixed feelings and that “twist” was just bizarre 👇

I don‘t know why I do this. I cannot do clutzy/chaotic girl + dashing/surly man. I eye roll more than swoon, and I cannot do the weird possessive/borderline aggressive vibe that just doesn‘t feel ok. It‘s my own fault, I should know better, I‘ve been here before. Bailing at 100 pages (only got that far because it was all I had to read on the train 😳).