by NRB | 15 Oct 2024 | Fiction |
Pulitzer-winner Elizabeth Strout explores themes of isolation and connection in her new novel featuring two of her most-loved characters. Elizabeth Strout, author of Oliver Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton and Oh William! (among others), has an ability to capture...
by NRB | 1 Aug 2024 | Fiction |
When Gail Parent published Sheila Levine in 1972 it wasn’t called a ‘sad girl novel’; in 2024 Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe shows the trope’s enduring popularity. Content warning: suicidal ideation Over 50 years ago, Gail Parent wrote a dark satire about a young...
by NRB | 20 Jun 2024 | Fiction, SFF |
Sharon Emmerichs gives the legend of Beowulf a makeover from the point of view of Beowulf’s niece. And yes, there is a dragon. Fryda, niece of the legendary King Beowulf, has always dreamed of becoming a warrior herself, despite her father’s refusal to allow her to...
by NRB | 23 May 2024 | Fiction |
The bestselling creator of the Grishaverse turns to the history of 16th-century Spain for this story of a young woman with magical powers. If the bread hadn’t burned, this would be a very different story. So it would. Luzia would not have used her magical skills, Doña...
by NRB | 9 May 2024 | Non-fiction |
Mary Garden’s memoir reveals her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her sister – and an extraordinary case of plagiarism. Mary Garden has written a fascinating and brutally frank memoir of her troubled relationship with her sister and the impact it has had on...
by NRB | 2 May 2024 | Fiction |
Shubnum Khan’s magical debut set on the east coast of Africa features a djinn, a house, and a story that reaches down the generations. A djinn, according to various encyclopedias, is a creature created by Allah from smokeless flames. It has a subtle body and is...
by NRB | 18 Apr 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
In Aoife Clifford’s third novel, the death of a local celebrity brings two old schoolmates together to answer some troubling questions. In a small town, news spreads, and in this particular small town – Welcome by name, though not always by nature – glamorous Vanessa...
by NRB | 16 Apr 2024 | Fiction |
Miranda Darling deploys all the voices in her protagonist’s head to reveal a fraught relationship in this allusive novella. Winona Dalloway, like Mrs Dalloway in Virginia Woolf’s novel of that name, often finds herself ‘lilting between observing life from the outside...
by NRB | 12 Apr 2024 | Fiction, Flashback Friday |
It’s Flashback Friday: Jessica Stewart reviews Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel of an older woman and a younger man which is getting renewed attention thanks to a film adaptation. Is there a right way to love? In a thousand ways we are told what is acceptable, ethical,...
by NRB | 29 Feb 2024 | Fiction |
Winner of the the ASA/HQ Fiction Prize, Ayesha Inoon’s debut novel explores the experience of moving from Sri Lanka to Australia. It was the silence that she noticed first. As they drove, Canberra unfolded in a series of stunning panoramas … The streets were empty,...
by NRB | 8 Feb 2024 | Fiction |
The new novel from Uruguayan writer Fernanda Trias is set in a dystopian city and has unsettling echoes of recent events. When the fog rolled in, the port turned into a swamp. Shadows fell across the plaza, filtering between the trees and leaving the long marks of...
by NRB | 18 Jan 2024 | Fiction |
The protagonist of Jessica Zhan Mei Yu’s debut novel is meant to be writing about Sylvia Plath and race, but finds herself in Scotland with writer’s block. I was meant to be writing a postcolonial novel. It had been an immigrant novel first but I learned the word...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]