Books

Is there such a thing as a happy ending in real life? We clearly to think so – how else do you explain the prevalence of romantic comedies and gushy love stories in just amount every storytelling medium there is? But it’s that very ubiquity which fulsomely nods its longing Continue Reading

Hannah Kent is one of those infinitely talented writers who takes the gloriously supple words of the English language and wields them with such beauty, meaning and emotional impact that it’s impossible to read one of her novels and not feel something shift deep down inside you. Her rare gift Continue Reading

A review copy was provided by NetGalley; available 28 January 2023 in print and digital from Angry Robot Books You could be forgiven for wondering whether a fractured, desert-plagued dystopia is the place to find and be true to yourself. After all, it’s hardly a quiet couch in an air-conditioned Continue Reading

Is it possible to be too popular? You wouldn’t normally think so since who doesn’t want to be universally loved and adored – surely there can be no downside? – but in The Hemsworth Effect by debut author James Weir, the who, and for that matter, the what, of Byron Continue Reading

At one key point in the sublime but emotionally honest loveliness that is Annie Stanley All At Sea, the eminently assured novel of Sue Teddern, our far-too-hard-in-herself protagonist sagely observes that there are simply some chapters in your life to which you cannot add a definitive “The End”. Given our Continue Reading

There is, they say, nothing new under the sun. Hyperbolic spin artists may beg to disagreed, seeking to convince that their new x, y or z is totally, excitingly, thrillingly new, but the truth is pretty much everything has been done before by someone somewhere, or usually some when, and Continue Reading

In an ordinary everyday world, there are very few people who would say murder is a reassuringly cosy thing. It’s dark, it’s violent and terrible and not the sort of thing you usually want to curl on the couch and read about; though, of course, those who listen to true Continue Reading

SNAPSHOTJuly 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly. On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII:a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide. Its curve not of nature, but design. Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and Continue Reading

Too often in life we are caught in that precariously unfulfilling place between vaulting hopes and dreams (which we all have whether we admit to them or not) and grimly unadorned reality where disappointment is an all too common presence. While many of us find a way out from this Continue Reading

Ah, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood! This relatively small piece of real estate in southern California has risen from the early days of silent pictures in the first decades of the twentieth century to have a cultural clout that continues for better or ill to bestride the globe. But Continue Reading