Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Twenty years on from ‘Brooklyn’ and we find Eilis Lacey in Long Island, settled in her life. But a knock on the door changes everything, in the long awaited follow up to ‘Brooklyn’. Is the past a foreign country, and what of Jim and Eilis?
Saltblood by Francesca De Tores
‘Saltblood’ is a rip roaring nautical epic based on the real life historical figure of Mary Read. Lyrical and wise, it explores freedom and and identity, all the while remaining a page turner.
North Woods by Daniel Mason
North Woods is the story of a plot of land in rural masachussets, told over 400 years and via 12 interconnected stories, ranging from painters to panthers.
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles - Book Review
‘A gentleman in Moscow’ is the story of Count Rostov, sentenced to life imprisonment in the Metrolpol hotel, 1922. This is a charming, stylish and engrossing read, with one of the most unforgettable fictional characters of recent times.
Book Review - The Wind Knows My Name by Isabelle Allende
Isabelle allende weaves three different narratives of immigration, starting from WW2 up to the present day.
Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor
Strong and atmospheric work of historical fiction that is loosely based on the true story of Hugh O’Flaherty, at the centre of a clandestine operation to smuggle Jews and escaped allied prisoners out of Nazi occupied Rome.
Book Review - All the Broken Places by John Boyne
‘All the broken places’ picks up where ‘The boy with the striped Pyjamas’ finished. Older sister Gretel and her mother are hoping to start again in Paris, but can they escape the past, and do they deserve to? This is an engrossing, thought provoking follow up from John Boyne that is another masterclass in empathetic storytelling.
Book Review - Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
Emily St. John Mandels most recent book is a beguiling mix of the contemporary, historical and science fiction, in a story that arcs over the centuries.
Book Review - Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Touching and tender story of family dynamics, set over five decades. It’s a book with a warm heart, told by a master storyteller.
Book Review - Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger
Frank Drumm looks back at a summer 40 years previously in a sleepy Minnesota town, when the discovery of a young boys body was to be the start of a fateful summer that would have an impact on his life. A well written and engaging thriller.
Book Review - The Daughter of Doctor Moreau - Silvia Moreno Garcia
Intriguing and very readable book, best described as Historical gothic fiction, about a secluded estate where a doctor who conducts mysterious experiments lives with his daughter, overseer and extended family. A new arrival upsets the balance in this idyllic place and things will never be the same again.
Bad Relations - Cressida Connolly
Wonderfully written and well paced multi generational story that moves from the Crimean battlefields to an English summer in the seventies. An evocative, well paced story with interesting characters in a book I devoured in a couple of days.
Book Review - The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel tells the story of a Native American tribe via a varied cast of characters and their fight to resist eviction from their ancestral homeland, and the problems they faced during the 1950’s.
Book Review - Lincoln in the bardo - George Sanders
This is an unusual story about the death of Lincoln’s son, told via snippets from historical sources and a chorus of characters who remain in the ‘bardo’. Not like anything else I have read in some time.
Book Review - These Days - Lucy Caldwell
Lucy Caldwell’s book, set amidst the Belfast blitz, is an emotional, haunting and beautifully woven story.
Book Review - The Saints of Swallow Hill - Donna Everhart
Strong work of historical fiction, following Rae Lynn and Del Reese in the turpentine camps of North Carolina, during the Great Depression. With both strong characters and a sense of place and time, could this be this years ‘Crawdads’?
Book Review - Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
A review of ‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee, a multi generational epic, that begins in a small Korean fishing village and ends in Tokyo in the 1980’s. Now on Apple TV, a sumptuous Kdrama epic.
Book Review - The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
The story of two twin sisters born in the strange town of Mallard, with its own system of racial purity. They escape, but their lives take two very different courses.
Book Review - Five Little Indians - Michelle Good
Five First Nation children and how they survive in the years after they have been released from the Canadian residential school system.
