Exiles - Jane Harper

 56%

17.11.23

The story's main character wasn't so much the detective as the lovely small-town Australian setting which, intriguing as that was for a Brit like me, made it not very thrilling for a thriller and not very mysterious for a mystery. Although the plot unfolded agonisingly slowly, I did keep on reading, which was something, but came away with a sense of it being a deeply conservative tale of people unable, or unwilling, to make a life away from the town they were born in.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - Joanna Cannon

59%
26.10.17

I found the first half in particular distractingly overwritten and a little slow. The 10-year-old narrator was unconvincing as a child, yet the narrative might have worked better if it had only been from her point of view. Otherwise, readable enough and gained some momentum towards the end.

Sweetland - Michael Crummey

65%
25.04.16

A strange, evocative book that begins as a story of a community and becomes a fable of individualism. The unusual writing style was well judged and appropriate, laying itself out slowly and able to support the increasing weirdness of the protagonist's experiences until the inevitable ambiguous ending.

[I liked this cover best despite the misspelling of the author's name!]