Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

52%

26.09.26

Pym's debut novel is really a pilot for her more successful later ones. Dated and staid as it is, there are glimpses of Pym's wicked humour and sharp characterisation.

The Games Gods Play - Abigail Owen

 60%

12.05.26

I liked the refreshingly fun, irreverent tone and vivid worldbuilding. I didn't like the inevitable power-imbalanced, male-possessive romance, the narrative inconsistencies or the main couple being the only characters with character, and not particularly likable ones at that. But a refreshingly fun, irreverent tone and vivid worldbuilding counts for a lot.

The Book of Longings - Sue Monk Kidd

63%

26.04.26

This was well researched and compelling with a great two-word hook - Jesus's wife! - but I wondered at the choice of exiling her while he was doing all the messiah stuff. Then I realised that it was really about the first-century female experience and the biblical Easter eggs (ha!) were just for decoration.

A Glass of Blessings - Barbara Pym

72%

18.12.25

I hadn't heard of this but it was by far the best Pym novel I've read. The snobbish, judgemental narrator was, oddly, especially engaging and relatable - in fact, it's surprising how much of a 1950s, middle-class, religious housewife's life is still relatable through Pym's witty and perceptive writing. Her relationships with her mother-in-law and, later, her gay friends, were surprisingly positive. Overall: delightful.

Ordinary Saints - Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

 54%

11.09.25

Subtle and many-layered as this book aimed to be, the stubborn and childish protagonist prevented any emotional connection and therefore it became just a long examination on all the different ways that families and the (Irish) Catholic church can fail you. And, this being lit fic, nothing much happened except random jumps to and from other times when nothing much happened.

The Book of Eve - Meg Clothier

71%

12.01.25

Was this fantasy? Magical realism? Speculative historical fiction? Whatever it was, it was oddly compelling, beautiful, intriguing. The characters and worldbuilding were strong, and the complex layers of meaning and plot and power dynamics were handled with confidence. I could have done with a little more humour, but at least it had a happy ending (spoiler!) and it's already better than anything I read last year.

Black Sheep - Rachel Harrison

60%

08.12.24

If you confuse this with the Georgette Heyer novel of the same name, you'll get quite a shock. I'm not generally a horror fan but I enjoyed the way this ramped up from 'disaffected daughter reluctantly returns home' to full-on blood sacrifices before the fires of Hell. The wry tone was well judged and the structure engaging, but what's with the annoying trend for omitting conjunctions and gerunds? ('Julia read the sentence, shouted at her Kindle in frustration. She didn't like it, took her out of immersion.')
 

Don't Forget to Write - Sara Goodman Confino

 61%

09.07.24

The word that best describes this story is 'breezy'. There's nothing particularly deep or disturbing but it's still engaging and readable - the holiday read I didn't know I needed.

This Way Out - Tufayel Ahmed

 46%

06.06.24

This was clearly semi-autobiographical, and took an unusual lens to important cultural issues that the author clearly feels passionate about. But worthiness doesn't make it a good novel. The poor writing undermined any emotional, political, psychological or spiritual points the author was trying to make. The main problem, of many, was the relentless telling not showing - pages and pages of exposition with very little to ground it, set the stakes or to make the reader engage with the narrator's predicament. Apparently, it has been edited but you wouldn't know it. 

I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston

 

69%

30.06.22

A sweet and funny YA LGBTQ+ romantic drama set in an Alabama Christian high school. Compulsively readable, with some clever turns of phrase, the number of gay characters (spoiler: almost everyone) heroically tries to rebalance the usual straight stories. There is, strangely, no hint of sex - other than kissing, of course - and only a nod towards the real issues faced by kids in such communities, but it is a tonic to take in the relentlessly positive message. 

Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym

 

62%

27.06.21

This late Barbara Pym novel is as sharp and occasionally as funny as her earlier ones, but it's shot through with the poignancy not only of the regrets of old age but also of relentlessly changing times. 

The Choir - Joanna Trollope

 63%

20.11.20

This was my first J Trollope and actually it was quite good, in a rather dated, middle-class, tropes of little England sort of way. 

Pilgrims - Matthew Kneale

 68%
15.10.20

I much enjoyed Kneale's English Passengers nearly 20 years ago and, while not quite in the same league, this was a similarly well-researched, well-characterised and entertaining insight into all the aspects of the extraordinary 13th-century trend for walking from Britain to Rome (and back). 

A Rare Benedictine - Ellis Peters

47%
17.08.20

Brother Cadfael's offcuts. I won't remember anything about it in a month.

The Hermit of Eyton Forest - Ellis Peters

56%
15.07.20

I hadn't read a Cadfael mystery for a while but the library has reopened (yay!) and this 14th in the series caught my eye (I don't think I've read 13, or the 12th for that matter, but they're all so similar it makes no odds). This had the usual creaky plot but these books are really about vivid characters and evocative settings.

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

70%
22.06.20

I'd been putting off reading this, partly because I wasn't all that keen on Perry's previous book, After Me Comes the Flood. But this was very different - rich and complex in all sorts of ways, with unusually detailed characterisation and an unusually modern take on Victorian Britain. I even liked the way it didn't wrap everything up neatly at the end (spoiler!).

Homegrown Hero - Khurrum Rahman

Didn't finish

This original, promising and essentially well-written novel could have been excellent if it had been properly edited and proofread. However, the continuity and factual errors (as well as the punctuation and occasional spelling issues) made it too much work to get further than halfway. It's odd and a little concerning that a mainstream publisher didn't appear to care about quality control checks.

Vox - Christina Dalcher

54%
03.06.19

'Overblown feminist dystopia' says one review, and I'm inclined to agree. Only Margaret Atwood should tackle 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Any valid points were mostly lost among the clunky prose, underdeveloped characters and the fact that the whole of America seems to consist of about 100 people in Washington.

An Excellent Mystery - Ellis Peters

56%
25.01.19

A bit of a rubbish mystery, actually, with the 'twist' being obvious literally from the start. But what Peters' writing lacked in suspense was gained in vivid descriptions, not only of 12th-century life and landscape but also of the many different facets of friendship.

The Children Act - Ian McEwan

50%
25.02.18

Despite having two copies of 'Atonement', I've never read any Ian McEwan books before. I'm not sure I'll read any more in a hurry as this seemed to have little point as a novel. Yes, it raises some questions about the nature of law and the challenges of upholding it, but so does the A-Level textbook I've just edited, and that has pictures.