Category: books

April book reviews

Three novels this month, one of which I actually bought myself rather than relying on my usual free NetGalley source.

A mixed bag in subject matter and tone but all excellent. I’ve enjoyed these books very much.

Some taut thrillers to look forward to next month, along with some highfalutin literary offerings, among them There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak, which has been recommended by a friend.

The News From Dublin by Colm Tobin *****

(Literary fiction, short stories – 304 pages. First published 31 March 2026)

A collection of short stories of varying lengths from Colm Tobin is worth several hours of anyone’s time.

He writes so beautifully about life, love and families in a way that few authors can manage to pull off – no obvious plot, with beginning, middle and end, just a very satisfying insight into the lives and worlds of the people he inhabits.

Thoughtful, nuanced and unputdownable. It felt like I was eavesdropping on private conversations, getting to know more and more about the main character and those around them as I read on.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this lovely book.

Kendal Acts Up by Ros Huxley ****

(Romcom – 341 pages. Published July 2025)

Forty-something orphan Kendal Tudge, down on her luck and out of sync with working life in London, inherits a flat by the sea in Dorset.

Could a move down to the Jurassic Coast be the answer to all her (many) prayers? It could be – but there’s one big problem. Her late Uncle Clem’s home is a warden-controlled flat and residents have to be over sixty to live there.

So when she decides to lie about her age, Kendal’s transformative journey begins. Can she shed her irresponsible, intolerant and hedonistic skin to become a better person and live in contentment alongside her older peers?

Or will she be found out and castigated for her deceit?

Throw in a good looking warden by the name of Gary, some eccentric neighbours and new-found friends, this rom-com will have you laughing out loud and rooting for Kendal all the way.

I’m a bit biased, because I know the author, but this debut novel deserves to be read more widely. Heck, it could even become a great little television series, with Kendal Tudge as the unlikely heroine.

A well-written and ingeniously plotted debut. Let’s hope there’s much more to come.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout *****

(Literary fiction – 224 pages. Expected publication 5 May 2026)

I am hugely in love with Elizabeth Strout and her style of writing. I adored Olive Kitteridge and Olive Again although I was not so keen on Lucy Barton until the pandemic when along came Lucy By The Sea.

Her latest novel, The Things We Never Say, introuces us to Artie Dam, a thoughful, kind and decent history teacher in his late fifties. Artie is married with one-grown up son. He is popular (in the main) with his students but finds himself increasingly out of step with a baffling world and the people around him.

Artie makes a devastating, personal discovery, having already felt, intuitively, that things are off with his life.

Set against a backdrop of divisive and an unbelievable direction in US politics, The Things We Never Say is bang up-to-date, with fears for the future and bafflement at how the world has got to where it is.

Strout writes quietly, yet beautifully, about melancholic situations which often lie beneath the veneer of ordinary, everday life in a small town.

The Things We Never Say reminded me of Stoner, the 1965 novel by John Williams – deep and impactful and with a quiet, unassuming teacher at its heart.

For me, this is Strout’s best novel yet.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance review copy of this novel. It will stay with me for a long time.

March book reviews

Two standout books this month, a pretty good one and two stinkers.

I won’t be reviewing that last pair here – they have a connection in that they are just far too long. I don’t mind 600 pages when the story and characters are compelling but get bored when the writer takes ages to get to the point while all along the way trying to impress the reader with style over content.

I admit to having the attention span of a goldfish. The sweet spot for me is around the 300-page mark, but I’m not averse to an immersive, long novel, such as The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (771 pages), Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (560) and The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman (504).

How about you?

This month, as well as putting page length under each title, I’m taking a leaf out of the blog, Is This Mutton, by one of my oldest friends, and classifying the book according to genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for advance review copies of these novels.

I’m hoping for good things next month, with Elizabeth Strout, Colm Tobin and Ann Patchett on my to-be-read pile.

Love Lane by Patrick Gale ****

(Literary, historical fiction, 284 pages. Expected publication 26 March 2026)

After reading A Place Called Winter several years ago, I wondered what might have happened to the central character, Harry Cane. He was the young man shunned by his family for his homosexuality and exiled to the Canadian prairies from Edwardian England to make a new life for himself.

Love Lane revisits Harry as an older man, who, cruelly, has to head back home after a lifetime in Canada and now, in effect, exiled to England.

You don’t need to have read the first book to enjoy this sequel but I think it probably helps.

Harry is now older and wiser and, back in England, meets his daughter, her husband and grandchildren.

Through their stories, we get to know more about life before and after the Second World War and the social hardships faced by the characters. Theirs are ordinary lives, but there is no such thing as ‘ordinary’, everyone has a story to tell, secrets to keep or confide in others.

Patrick Gale writes beautifully and Love Lane does not disappoint. This is a gentle story of heartbreak, horror, love and the bonds that bind families together.

Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens ***

(Contemporary fiction, adult, literary -208 pages. Publication date: 25 June 2026)

The novel centres around one day in the life of a young mother of two. But it’s not just any day – it’s the last one before she goes back to her job after maternity leave.

Our heroine decides to make it a special day for the children – precocious Felix, aged four, and his baby brother, Rudy. However, all is not sweetness and light and the day deteriorates almost as soon as it starts, especially as she finds a female ‘item’ in her husband’s bag which is not hers.

She battles through the day alone, because he is working away, and everything seems to go wrong. She wants it to be a lovely day for both of her children but reality strikes, over and over again.

Some very funny scenes in this novel, especially the struggles in a corner shop with a double buggy and storytime in the local library.

The book will appeal to all parents – especially to mothers of children who were born close together but are now perhaps a bit older and don’t require the constant supervision and stimulation needed for younger ones.

I think if you have children of this age, the frustration and difficulties could be too raw and just hit home a little too hard.

Well written, funny, with a likeable central character who bears the guilt of working mothers everywhere and trying to do the right thing for her children.

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia ****

(Literary, historical fiction – 288 pages. Publication date 14 April 2026)

This is an extraordinary novel. I didn’t expect to enjoy it but I was completely hooked by the characters’s journey and the quality of the writing.

Based on the true story of the author’s grandparents, the novel is about David, a handsome Catholic priest, and Margaret, a progressive theology teacher, who find themselves falling in love.

It’s a slow-burning, intense novel but beautifully written, particularly the later parts where they ‘find’ each other and the sections where Margaret is remembering, through the haze of old age and dementia, her past life.

The two main characters are very well drawn and we empathise with them in their struggle against forbidden love. There were stories from David’s public school background which were truly heartbreaking.

This was a tender, sensitve and terrific story. I would have given it five stars but felt perhaps the in-depth research was a little intrusive and felt slightly forced during their many conversations.

February book reviews

I’ve not done very well with books this month. This is a shame because the weather outside is frightful and there’s nothing better than curling up with a good book when the rain is lashing against the windows.

There were two novels I abandoned after a couple of chapters and then a three-star which was all right, but not that enjoyable.

However, there is one stand-out book for me and I’m still reading it. It’s A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia, due to be published in April. I didn’t expect it to be my thing at all, but it’s captivating. I’ll reveal more in next month’s reviews.

Being a reviewer for NetGalley is a real privilege. Especially when I go into a book shop and see all these titles I’ve already read, such as The Wardrobe Department *** by Elaine Garvey, Three Days in June **** by Anne Tyler, The Boy From The Sea **** by Garrett Carr and The Book of Doors **** by Gareth Brown.

One of my next reads will be the new novel by Elizabeth Strout, the author of Olive Kitteridge. But I have a few more to get through first, including my first purchase in a long time, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, published in 1939 and set around these parts, yet I’ve never read it.

In 1976, it was made into a television film starring Peter O’Toole.

And there has been talk that British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has his eye on the lead role in another film adaptation, although it’s all been a bit quiet of late.

Anyway, here’s my one and only book review for February.

Where The Truth Lies by Katherine Greene ***

Publication date: 24 March 2026

A murder rocks a small community in southern USA and threatents to blow apart the impending marraige of Rhett and Lucinda and their future happiness together. We think we know who did it and what and why it happened, but do we?

There are twists and turns galore in this thriller/whodunnit/domestic drama and I did not see the end coming. The story is told from various viewpoints, including the voice of the murdered woman, a device I always find difficult to take on board because how can she tell a story in the first person, past tense, when she’s dead?

I also didn’t much like any of the characters through which the tale unfolded.

Anyway, that aside, this was a tense and generally fast-paced novel which would be an ideal basis for a Netflix adaptation in the Harlan Coben mould.

January book reviews

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for advance review copies of these novels.

Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce ***

Publication date: 26 February 2026

Two teenage girls are on trial in Scotland for the killing of one of their friends. As the court case unfolds, primarily through the eyes of one of the burnt-out jurors – a heart surgeon – a ritualistic sisterhood is exposed, each one of the accused blaming the other, with witchcraft at the centre of it all.

This is a very difficult book to review without spoilers so I won’t ruin the unexpected twist. Suffice to say that this is a thrilling thriller, with viewpoints shifting like sand and the reader questioning what is real and what is fantasy.

An easy-to-read crime novel and highly recommended.

A Stranger in Corfu by Alex Preston ****

Publication date: 12 February 2026

Wow! What an imaginative use of one of the two small islands just opposite Corfu Town, the capital of the Ionian island. This was an intricate, exciting thriller set in a place I know so well.

Alex Preston envisages Vidos as the home – or sanctuary? – for compromised or spent MI6 agents. It’s not long before something happens and a tangled web of deceit begins to unravel as the body count stacks up.

I won’t say much more than that for fear of spoilers but this is a well-researched (both in terms of spyland and Corfu) novel which is multi-layered.

Very well written, easy to lose yourself within its pages and duplicitous characters.

Recommended.

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley ****

Expected publication date: 2 April 2026

This is my first taste of Gwendoline Rlley and, despite the lack of a hard plot or storyline to the novel, I loved it.

Two forty-something Londoners, Laura and Putnam, have been friends for years. The contemporary story begins when Putnam loses his writer job at Sequence magazine. This is the springboard for a tale of friendship, with respective pasts and presents and ponderings about the future intertwining, like a commentary on midlife and how they got there.

It’s not a novel that goes anywhere much but the wit, matter-0f-fact descriptions and use of language make this a joy to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance review copy of this novel.

November book reviews

I’ve read quite a few books in the last month, thanks to NetGalley, and some were better than others.

Endeavouring to be more organised and helpful to my readers, I’m just going to include on my blog books which have just been or are about to be published, rather than those not due to be released for months hence.

And, following in the footsteps of my old friend from the lifestyle and fashion blog, Is This Mutton, I’m only going to include reviews of three stars and over. (Sadly, I’ve had a few two-star ones in recent months. You can read my reviews of these and others on the Goodreads website.)

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read a book if a reviewer thinks it’s duff. And it’s a bit soul destroying for authors to get a pasting online – writing is a tough enough world as it is.

However, saying that, I’m going to include my review of the latest John Grisham novel, because I was expecting such great things from this esteemed and prolific author. And, besides, his career is not going to nosedive just because a nobody from Dorset said she didn’t like his book.

No Friend To This House by Natalie Haynes ****

Published September 2025.

In her latest retelling of the Greek myths, Natalie Haynes turns to Jason & the Argonauts and the Medea story. The tale of the handsome hero who seizes the golden fleece, with help from the witch, Medea, is well-known, particularly to those of us brought up with the 1960s classic movie.

The Medea story, as told by Greek playwright Euripides and first performed in 431 BC, is a staple of the stage even to this day, with various adaptations and audiences trying to make sense of why the protagonist murders her two sons.

Tying the two halves of the story together in the one novel was always going to be a challenge. The first half is a swashbuckling quest and the second is a dark tragedy. But who better to meld the two together than Haynes, a writer, broadcaster, classicist and comedian whose novels include Stone Blind (about Medusa) and A Thousand Ships, which sees the Trojan War from the perspective of the women involved.

No Friend to This House centres on the roles played by Jason and Medea – and the Greek gods as puppeteers – in seizing the golden fleece from the far eastern edge of the Black Sea and taking it to Colchis, encountering dreadful obstacles along the way. Medea’s magic enables them to get through their ordeals.

They end up in Corinth, married with children, and then Jason announces he is in love with Glauke, the princess, and is getting wed. Medea enacts a terrible revenge, but is it any wonder? She’s been deceived by her conniving husband. But killing her sons? How on earth can this be explained?

Haynes does so with aplomb – no spoilers here, but there is a final plot twist – in a nuanced and layered story, with multiple narrators and viewpoints. Highly recommended.

(I first reviewed this book for the Historical Novel Society.)

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall ***

Published March 2025.

I came to this wanting to love it as I’d heard so much about it. I thought it might be a sort of British version of To Be Sung Underwater (2011) by Tom McNeal. I adored that novel.

Set in rural Dorset in the 1950s and 1960s, Broken Country sees Beth’s world turned upside down when her first love comes back into her life.

Grieving for Bobby, the young son she lost, Beth makes a momentous – and reckless – choice. It can only lead to heartache and pain.

Spoiler alert: it does.

Broken Country is a story of loss, love and betrayal. Part thriller, part courtroom drama, the reader will be on the edge of their seat when this is made into a film by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company, which also made Where The Crawdads Sing.

Readers raved about that book, as they are raving about this one. I was not a fan of the former – but if we all liked the same fiction, it would be a very dull world indeed.

Broken Country is a good yarn. The ‘heroine’ is not very likeable but this cracking story will become a book club favourite and convert well to the big screen.

I could see the denouement a mile off but, even so, it was a satisfying ending which tied up loose ends, although I felt cheated by Beth, as a first person narrator, telling me only half a story and leaving the juicy bit until last.

The Widow by John Grisham **

Published October 2025.

A down-at-heel lawyer with gambling debts and a failing marriage takes on a new client. She is seemingly a wealthy widow who wants him to take a look at the will prepared by another lawyer in town. Our protagonist soon realises the other lawyer has carved out a sizeable chunk of her fortune for himself – can he help her out while, at the same time, solve some of his own financial worries by being a little dishonest himself?

I’ve read some cracking John Grisham books in the past but, sorry, this isn’t one of them. It was a huge disappoinment and lacking the urgency and intrigue of Grisham’s earlier work.

The relationship between the main character and the widow drags on, as does his family story, with lots of telling and not much showing. Then a court case ensues, followed by a wrongful imprisonment and then another character who comes into the frame only in the third part. And then it ends very abruptly to the point that I thought I was missing some pages from the Kindle. Apparently not.

I skim read in the end, wanting to know what had happened and why, but it was quite a few nights’ reading I will never get back.