Gav Reads

Category: Review

  • WFA25: Novellas Review

    In the middle of July I set myself two reading challenges

    1. Read the British Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Anthology
    2. Read the World Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Novella

    The nominees for best anthology have had individual reviews, but I’ve decided to comment on the novellas as a group.

    As a reminder the nominees for World Fantasy Awards 2025 Novella are: 

    • Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire/Titan Books)
    • In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark (Grimdark Magazine)
    • Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)
    • The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom)
    • The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom/Titan Books UK)
    A stack of the shortlisted novellas.

    Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire/Titan Books)

    This is a re-read. I originally read this in November 2024 and enjoyed it. On the second reading, it felt more powerful. I was vaguely anticipating certain events, but I was convinced that I had also misremembered them. I hadn’t. It was more disturbing.

    The opening challenges you to suspend your disbelief. A woman is accompanied to the hospital by her husband for treatment of her affliction by hospital staff. So far, this is typical for a late nineteenth or early twentieth-century novel. However, this hospital is on the moon. It is also reported to be situated at the entrance to the burrow of a long-dead spider.

    What fascinates me about this story is Ballingrud’s exploration of memory and how reality can be reshaped through misremembering. There are spiders and body horror, but also themes of empowerment, rage, and revenge.

    I highly recommend this.

    In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark (Grimdark Magazine)

    An assignation attempt goes very wrong.

    There is no other way of saying this; I Did Not Finish this. I barely made it to the end of the second chapter.

    I also checked the ending to see if I’d been unkind or impulsive in my assessment. But I hadn’t.

    The opening had me hooked: following the third-best assassin in the city on a mission was quite thrilling. However, the voice, the point-of-view shift, and ultimately the story itself wasn’t for me.

    I’m sure it’ll have its fans. I am not one of them.

    Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)

    A linguist has an interview with an assassin at the School of Assassins. Stonee Orphan greets the individual with their first assignment. As they try to understand who they are to kill, we gain insight into both the assassin and their client.

    Lemberg made me work. Since this was my first Birdverse story, I had to grasp the world being presented—a world of Stars and personified storylines: Song, Stone, Fish, Moss, Feeder, Boater, and Weaver.

    I’m curious how that lore is used, if at all, in other Birdverse works.

    The interview format allows the characters to swap stories, giving Stone, the assassin, and the reader insight into why Ulín, the linguist, wants someone killed. It also explores why Ulín is coy about stating it outright.

    It’s one of those stories that gets under your skin because it feels unfair. Ulín and Stone end up where they are because of what others see in them, not because of what they’ve built for themselves.

    Ultimately, it’s an exploration of story, gender, language, and understanding.

    Outstanding, and my winner (it was the actual winner too).

    The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom)

    A nurse volunteers to work in a small rural community in the Appalachian Mountains. There, she discovers she is unwelcome, despite the benefits her work could bring.

    This is a tough one. Billed as a blend of historical horror, trans romance and blood-soaked revenge, it certainly delivers all three.

    Mandelo handles the fluidity of pronouns used by the main character – a nurse sent to an Appalachian settlement – with ease. The romance becomes spicy, and the sense of dread remains palpable.

    Yet Mandelo’s story has some blind spots. At certain points, they create magical (and impossible) safety bubbles and pull back from fully exploring the truly horrific moments. I’m unsure whether this was a conscious or subconscious attempt to protect the characters – or the readers – from additional trauma.

    However, by holding back, some awkward moments arise where threats seem to vanish unnaturally. I also felt slightly short-changed by the lore surrounding the forest, which was only hinted at rather than fully explored or utilised.

    There is a lot to enjoy here, and it’s worth reading, but you may come away feeling slightly short-changed.

    The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom/Titan Books UK)

    The children of the Tyrant vanish into a wood—a wood the locals know never to enter. The only person who has ever ventured into those woods and returned is sent in after them.

    Perhaps I’ve been reading too many stories set in dangerous, mythological forests—thanks to Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology—but, as with The Woods All Black review above, I felt Mohamed held something back here and didn’t dig quite deep enough.

    Veris Thorn enters the woods with a knack (or folk instinct) for knowing the right or wrong way to proceed. There, she encounters tricksters, helpers, monsters, and impossible things. I liked Veris as a character—stoic and stalwart as she marched through the woods.

    But the set pieces didn’t add up for me. Should it have been grimmer? More fantastical? Perhaps the children should have been more damaged. Personally, I would have preferred it to be darker, more dangerous, and more unsettling.

    Again, as with The Woods All Black, I’m left wondering whether this was a deliberate or subconscious attempt to shield the readers—or perhaps the writer—from the trauma at the heart of the story.

    A sequel might well change my view, but for now, it’s a pleasant afternoon read—provided you don’t expect too much.

    The winner, Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg, was announced on Sunday, 2 November, at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

  • BFA25 Review: Fight Like A Girl 2 edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall

    This is the third review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    In the introduction, Charlotte Bond writes:

    Whatever your taste, whatever you’re looking for, in these pages, you will learn one thing: how to fight like a girl.

    And I did — though I also found a few stories that weren’t to my taste, which is a shame. With fewer stories than the other anthologies I’ve read so far, the weaker ones stand out a little more — but never mind, there are still some standout tales here.

    K T Davies’s The Seamstress, the Hound, the Cook, and her Brother surprised me the most using a triptych to follow a crime through different eyes. Having seen the situation build from competing viewpoints, the shifting perspectives give the reader deeper insight into the final scene.

    Shifts in perspective are definitely a theme.

    One perspective I enjoyed — though I felt a little cheated by — was in A Human Response by Dolly Garland. Here a women’s body is replaced, and she finds herself trapped. Slowly, she pieces together what happens to her. The character is supposed to be without emotion, yet she has emotional reactions, which feels jarring. It also fades to black at a key moment in the ending, which I think robbed the character of the agency Garland had built up.

    In In More Trouble Than She’s Worth? by Cheryl Morgan, the narrator lacks agency, but her perspective offers some great observations. For example:

    I like the chrome in the sick bay, but am not convinced by the white. My crew have odd taste at times. I, by the way, am Sagaris, an Artemis Class cruiser of the Queen’s Amazon Navy, General Thomys commanding.

    And

    I got him though, didn’t I?, I thought proudly to myself. You can’t scrag a target without wobbling a few crew stomachs. A little non-fatal discomfort does the little ones good.

    In this tale, the crew picks up some very precious cargo. Morgan uses the situation to explore how women can be both mothers and fighters — and how that differs from their enemies. This one made me cry.

    The arrogance of men was explored by directly and successfully by both Gaie Sebold and Juliet E. McKenna.

    In Ambition’s Engine, Sebold takes us to high society, where a newly appointed Chief Defender of the Dominion’s Transport hatches a plan to get more from a train ride than he was commissioned for. Sebold packs in commentary about war, colonialism, and the arrogance of powerful men.

    With Civil War, McKenna examines the impact of a change in monarch when the King has no male heir. She explores the options available to the court and the guilds. This was a like watching a royal game of chess and I didn’t see final the move until it was too late. Very cleverly done.

    In the introduction Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall suggest:

    ‘…perhaps now we can look beyond a direct kick back against the idea that women can’t fight, and start to reintegrate more traditionally acceptable forms of feminine power with that warrior archetype.’

    And they’ve proved with this collection that fighting and feminine power take many forms — from the bloody, to the subtle, to the fearless — with motivations that defy the ‘warrior archetype’.

    If you don’t need convincing that women can fight, this collection is for you. There are some excellent stories here.

    And if you do need some persuasion, this collection is also for you — though you might end up a little more paranoid than before, as not all fights are direct confrontations or fairly fought.

    Anthology Details

    Title: Fight Like a Girl – Volume 2
    Editors: Roz Clarke, Joanne Hall
    Publisher: Wizard’s Tower Press
    Publication Date: Autumn 2024
    ISBN (Paperback): 9781913892845
    ISBN (EPUB): 9781913892852
    ISBN (MOBI): 9781913892869
    Format: Paperback, EPUB, MOBI

  • BFA25 Review: I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! edited by Berg, McCartney & Galey

    This is the second review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    The title of I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! is provocative. It came from a comment made in jest, which sparked a train of thought that led to an anthology of…

    …stories that reclaim the idea of pulp for a queer audience, centre masculinities in a new light, and take [the reader] on a damn fun ride. Pulp parody, pulp pastiche, and pulp deconstruction.

    And unlike Death Becomes Her, I’m going to give you a warning before you drink the Queer-Aid:

    The stories in this volume run the gamut(s!) between funny, horny, heartbreaking, thrilling, horrific, explicit, and more.

    The opening story, In the Garden of the Serpent King by James Bennett, jumps right in, presenting the promised themes of humour, horror, and eroticism.

    The tone is set by exploring the question: “How do you subvert the ‘Englishman in Congo’ trope?”

    The answer is: you hammer home how of-its-time it was—in the gayest way possible. And the hammer keeps hitting home, tale after tale. This is not a subtle collection, but it contains lots of subtleties as themes emerge and intertwine.

    An overarching one is age and beauty, but the stories also explore narcissism turned into cannibalism, perfection as slavery, and—more importantly—love and legacy.

    These stories are best approached with a camp sense of fun, because there are a couple that are so silly they might be annoying—yes, Tea, Shade, and Drag Crusades by Bailey Maybray, I am thinking about you. It takes the “lip sync for your life” idea off into space. Where I feel Bailey fell short is that there are bits in the story that fail its own internal logic.

    Just as silly, but more successful, is Dotch Masher and the Planet ‘MM’ by William C. Tracy. This time, there’s a race across space to stop a villain—but are they rivals, or are they lovers? Now that’s a question that rears its head a lot.

    The conflict between internal and external is explored in Plezure by Rand Webber, which is reminiscent of The Stepford Wives—at least at the start—but evolves as the spell starts to crumble, thanks to love.

    Love is powerful. These authors have drawn on it and utilised it. The love can be familial (found or blood), friendly, or romantic. And it’s strong.

    I can now say I’ve read Aliette de Bodard. In The Tutelary, the Assassin, and the Healer, we encounter love in its negative and positive forms—grief and anger alongside romantic bonds—as it asks the question: What would you do for those you love? Taking a journey on a potentially insane ship seems to be one of them.

    In Yesterday’s Heroes by Charlie Winter, a warrior comes out of retirement to find someone he loves—but I’ll let you figure out what type of love the Boy in the tale represents.

    And despite the title’s request, not all twinks are obliterated. They are celebrated. And in some cases, they need to continue to be heard.

    Like the Tharsis Courier in Dusk and Dawn in the Grand Bazaar by John Berkeley, and the acquisition specialist in Hazard Pay by Malcolm Schmitz.

    I can’t leave this review without mentioning two of my favourites, as I’ve not had a way of slipping them in thus far—but I hope we get to see the twinks in these:

    • Narcissus Munro, Thief for Hire by Kieran Craft
    • In Sheep’s Clothing by Caleb Roehrig

    Before I go, it’s clear that despite some clumsiness in a few stories, I found them emotionally resonant. That might not be the case for every reader, but I think the editors hit their goal of reclaiming the idea of pulp, with stories that centred masculinities in a new light—and took this reader on a damn fun ride.

    Anthology Details

    • Title: I Want That Twink OBLITERATED!: A Radical Anthology of Queer SFF
    • Editors: Trip Galey, C.L. McCartney, Robert Berg
    • Publisher: Bona Books
    • Publication Date: November 1, 2024
    • ISBN: 9781068731112
    • Format: Paperback

  • BFA25 Review: Nova Scotia Vol 2 edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson [2024]

    This is the first review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    Nova Scotia 2 Cover Art

    An anthology, to me, is a little bit like a selection box—mostly treats you’ve never tried before. There might be an author or two you’ve read previously, but for the most part, they’re new experiences. And I can say that’s true of this anthology.

    Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Ken MacLeod are authors I’ve read and enjoyed before. The others—apart from Grant Morrison—were unknown to me.

    The editors, Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, in their introduction to this collection of new speculative fiction from Scotland, ask and answer the question: What is speculative fiction?

    “It’s writing that challenges consensus reality. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all the variants and subgenres of these imaginative approaches to storytelling. What does it have to do with Scotland? Everything!”

    They also explain how they see the contributors’ connection to Scotland:

    “The contributors are all Scots. They’re Scottish in the broadest sense: some were native-born while others have chosen to make their home here; some are Highlanders and islanders, others urbanites; and this gives us an extraordinary range of perspectives. We wanted this collection to be inclusive, not exclusive, and we wanted not only the tight focus of introspection, but also the ability to see ourselves, as Burns had it, as others see us.”

    Did every story give me a sense of connection to Scotland? Not quite. There were definitely some stories that didn’t evoke that feeling, despite the editorial postscript often trying to explain the link. That sense of connection swings from strong to weak, and in a couple of cases, I felt their inclusion was tentative at best.

    The opening story by Ken MacLeod threw me slightly. It resurrects two folk singers from an earlier story (Newton’s Wake)—I’ve no idea how significant they were, as I’ve never met them before. Ken places them on a future Mars where AIs have not been a gift to humanity. But what niggled me was the use of “Joint Chiefs” in a military context. It felt like an odd Americanism in a story that should centre Scotland.

    Not understanding the importance of political and protest songs to Scotland reflects my own ignorance. And opening with what ends up being a very clever story, with multiple layers, set me up for the whiplash that followed.

    The whiplash effect comes from jumping between strong voices—at least at the beginning. There’s a TV star whose family traditions lie in curses, a homecoming that could lead to confrontation, a detective who gets too nosy about a specialist investigation team, and a good old-fashioned locked-room murder.

    A story that’s exceptional but felt out of place is Lise and Otto by Pippa Goldschmidt. It describes the rise of the Nazis but doesn’t, as hinted in the introduction, lean into the idea of “as others see us.”

    Another story I enjoyed was Broderie Écossaise by Eris Young. Again, it lacked a grounding in Scotland, though I’m glad I read such a clever story about embroidery and desire.

    We slip into body horror with Grimaldo the Weeping, as Ali Maloney explores the power of stories—and how often they’re closer to reality than we’d like.

    Junior by Lindz McLeod floored me. You’ll see why when you read it.

    There were also a few skips—sorry, Grant, I just couldn’t get into it.

    There’s environmental exploration in a couple of stories, volunteering that goes wrong, and the cutest—but saddest—dodo story.

    I need Doug Johnstone to write another story set in the world of Under the Hagstone—ideally with the same characters.

    There were more skips, and a few misses, but overall I’d say there’s enough variety and story strength to justify reading this all the way through—skipping where appropriate.

    Anthology Details

    • Title: Nova Scotia Vol 2: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland
    • Editors: Neil Williamson, Andrew J. Wilson
    • Publisher: Luna Press Publishing
    • Publication Date: July 30, 2024
    • ISBN: 978-1915556431
    • Format: Paperback

  • SR Review: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner [2024]

    Second (or Spoiler) Read Reviews are written for readers who already know about a book or don’t mind a spoiler or three. Expect plot reveals and in-depth discussion of the book’s events.

    Cover of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

    WARNING. SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON 

    My interest in reading Creation Lake was sparked by a mistaken categorisation of it as science fiction. It’s not. It is, however, science-infused fiction.

    That’s one of the things that kept me going—the main character and first-person narrator’s paraphrasing of various emails focused on Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, which were also supposed to contain hidden messages about the intentions of an activist group she was sent to spy on.

    I should have put it down when the email summaries stopped; without them, it lost its magic. It felt like there was a moment when the author realised she needed to do something with all these vibes and start planning for an ending.

    I can see why it made it to The Booker Prize 2024 shortlist. It lingers. It lingers. I imagine it would spark a great book club discussion.

    The character repeatedly tells us she’s an agent provocateur—and not a good one. In the end, the incident she’s meant to instigate would have happened without her, which makes it all feel a little pointless. Actually, that’s unfair. She does whip up the crowd, forcing the target to be in the wrong place at the right time.

    There’s no grand conspiracy. There’s commentary on wealthy people playing saviour to those their peers have oppressed and ignored. There’s also a lot of information imparted about evolution.

    It’s like a weird fever dream of a secret agent’s summer holiday—one that both we and the author eventually wake up from. It’s one I feel I’d rather not have had.

  • FR Review of The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton [2024]

    First Read Reviews (FR Reviews) are written for readers who want to know whether a book is worth picking up and what it might be about. There may be mild spoilers, but no in-depth discussion of the book’s events.

    The publishers describe The Stars Too Fondly as:

    “Part space odyssey, part Sapphic romcom, and all spaceship-stealing fun, Emily Hamilton’s breathtaking debut is a wild tale of galaxy-spanning friendship, improbable love, and wonder as vast as the universe itself.”

    After finishing it last night, I mostly agree.

    Hamilton weaves a well-constructed story of strange energy, making the best of bad circumstances, and unsustainable love.

    I can’t remember why I bought it—maybe I just needed more fun, space-based sci-fi. I read it now because June was Pride Month, and I was hoping for some queer joy. That’s exactly what Emily Hamilton delivered.

    Four friends want to know what happened to the missing crew of a spaceship, so they break into a compound to find out. In the process, they set off a series of events that lead them to examine the fabric of the universe in a completely unique way.

    At its core, The Stars Too Fondly is a slow-burn sapphic romance. It’s essential not only to understanding the main character but also to a foundational element of the plot. The story couldn’t have happened without it.

    As this is a First Read Review, I won’t overexplain the story. I found it compelling and touching—it made me cry—but it also had a strong sci-fi heart. The science drives the events until… well, you’ll see.

    Hamilton keeps it playful, especially in the interplay between the long-term friends and the not-so-subtle flirting of the wannabe lovers. The characters come to understand the impact of being on an unplanned space odyssey, and Hamilton manages the tension so it never spills over into melodrama.

    I do have a couple of notes of caution. First, in the setup, you’ll need to suspend disbelief that an advanced spacecraft could remain untouched in a hangar for twenty-one years. Second, the story is stripped back, which is part of its appeal—you, as the reader, are as trapped as the characters. Some may find this overly simplistic or frustrating. But as I said, it’s all about the romance and finding out whether they will or won’t. No spoilers, but I cried again.

    The spice level was unexpected, given the timing and circumstances in which it occurred. And the resolution to one of the plotlines felt underplayed, considering all it took to get there.

    But Hamilton clearly planned her plot. You can see the threads come together, and that makes her a writer to watch.

    Overall, I had a great time. If you’re looking for queer joy in space with solid science fiction adventure behind it, I highly recommend this book.

  • FRReview: The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth [2023]

    First Read Reviews are written for readers who want to know if a book is worth picking up and what it might be about. There may be the mildest spoilers, but no in-depth discussion of the events in the book.

    Description:

    The Undetectables, a detective agency run by three witches and a ghost in a cat costume (don’t ask), are hired to investigate another murder, several years after failing to solve their only other case. Given their track record and what’s happened over the last few years, they might not be up to the job.

    Thoughts:

    Note: If you like the sound of this book, don’t read the blurb. Just dive in.

    This is an urban fantasy murder mystery set in Wrackton, a small Occult town (I say small as I’m not entirely sure how many residents it has), home to various magical and mythological folk, and, if Diana’s ex-girlfriends are any measure, it’s very queer normative. There are some non-magical humans (Apparents) in the town, but they, the Apparents, mostly live separately in ordinary places, though magical people do live there amongst them too.

    Our focus is on Mallory, whose pain and fatigue from her fibromyalgia are explored through both the physical effects and the impact it has on her friendships with Cornelia and Diana. Her connections to them have faded by the time the story starts in the present. Throughout, it shows how those relationships have waned in Mallory’s mind since her diagnosis.

    Plenty of awkward moments happen as the trio gets back together. It feels like a mix between Scooby Doo and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Teen/Post-Teen detective forumas because they are excited to be working out clues, but put themselves in grave danger, while also dealing with the interpersonal dramas within their circle and from the people who enter it.

    There is a solid mystery at the heart of The Undetectables, with clues scattered throughout. It was well plotted and handled, and I didn’t feel cheated as it became clear what had happened and what led them to their suspects.

    Smyth tries to pack a lot into the first outing. A setup of local politics and the mythos that binds this and other Occult towns together, as they also explores the past and newly emerging relationships between our three main characters.

    Smyth labours some of the points they are trying to make and fails to hit all the marks they have set themselves, which can make for clunky reading. Some of the scenes don’t play out quite as smoothly as they should. I feel I’ve misread some key information (like doors and placements of characters in scenes), and I thought some interactions didn’t feel as natural as they could have been.

    But ultimately, I forgave the structural and technical issues I perceived because I wanted to see the mystery solved; I was invested in finding out what happened to our main trio and their friendly ghost: Smyth made me tear up more than once, as they also doesn’t pull their punches.

    I’d be remiss in not praising Smyth for how well they handled the impact of Mallory’s change in health on her and her friends. They also pointed out how everyone faces things that people are reluctant to discuss by getting their characters to discuss them.

    Summary:

    There is no getting away from the fact that there are some structural and technical issues. But for me, those are forgiven because of the world Smyth is attempting to build, the problems their characters explore, and the killer their characters are attempting to catch.

    If you can push past the abovementioned issues, I recommend reading it.

    Thanks to proud-geek.co.uk, I have a copy of the sequel, The Undead Complex, sitting on my desk. I can’t wait to see what our trio gets up to next.

  • Review: Broken Light by Joanne Harris (2023)

    Title: Broken Light
    Author: Joanne Harris
    Pages: 443
    Genre: Fiction
    Stand-alone/Series: Stand-alone.
    Year of Release: 2023
    Publisher: Orion
    Review Copy via the Publisher

    Bernie Ingram is forty-nine, menopausal, and lonely. Bernie feels herself growing less visible, less surprising, and less lovable with every passing day. Until the murder of a woman in a local park unlocks a series of childhood memories and, with them, a power that she has suppressed for all her adult life.

    Until now.

    When a woman finally breaks, watch out for the pieces…

    I loved Broken Light. Harris takes the familiar life story of a woman getting pregnant too soon, settling down, and slowly becoming invisible but adds the rage of King’s Carrie being released at menopause.

    Does Bernie seek revenge for all the women that men have wronged? She could, quite easily, because with great power comes great responsibility, doesn’t it?

    Everyone has a choice, and when Berinie Ingram’s power reappears, she believes she will make better choices and control her powers. But life doesn’t work like that; there are consequences to interfering.

    Harris demonstrates how easily women are diminished, sidelined, used and abused. As Bernie’s power grows, her rage is unleashed, as do the strength of the voices in her head that dare her to go further, to take more extreme actions.

    Social media is ingrained into so much of our lives, and it’s integral to Bernie’s story. It might feel a little alien if you don’t spend time interacting on social media.

    Does Bernie (via Harris) focus too much on the impact of social media discourse?

    I did find it a little too open and maybe a little too laboured in the points it was making, but many corners of social media focus on convincing people that one group or another is the source of all their problems.

    The format is mostly Bernie’s LiveJournal Entries with the occasional linked extract from her childhood friend’s new book on Bernie (published the year after the events Bernie describes). So it is going to reflect Bernie’s thoughts and feelings on things that are central to her and her world.

    I can imagine this will frustrate or put off some readers and might cause a little Marmite-like reaction.

    For me, Broken Light is utterly devastating but contains so many shards of hope. If every person could pivot slightly, the world can be such a better place.

    Why haven’t I said much about the plot? #spoilers. I will say it made me cry and left me more hopeful than when I started it.

    Read it and see if you feel the same.

    Rating: 5/5 Date: 6 May 23

    Additional Information

    There is more insight and a Q&A on Joanne Harris’s website. Warning it does contain spoilers, so you may want to look after you’ve read it.

  • Audiobook Review: Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater (2023)

    Title: Death of a Bookseller 
    Author: Alice Slater
    Narrators: Emma Noakes, Victoria Blunt
    Pages/Length: 384/12hrs 58 mins
    Genre: Crime/Thriller
    Stand-alone/Series: Stand-alone.
    Year of Release: 2023
    Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
    Review Copy via NetGalley

    Roach – bookseller, loner and true crime fanatic is not interested in making friends. She has all the company she needs in her serial killer books, murder podcasts and her pet snail, Bleep.

    That is, until Laura joins the bookshop.

    This tale of obsession is told from the dual perspectives of the person who carries the flame and the person who is their focus.

    It quickly becomes apparent that True-Crime-Podcast-loving Roach feels she has a connection to Laura that’s not reciprocated. But Roach isn’t deterred; she sets out to become friends.

    I find thrillers hard to review. Their strength is in the tension that builds as the story unfolds page by page. I don’t want to spoil things by revealing too much.

    Slater’s skill is keeping pages turning. I listened to the audiobook, and each chapter is short, sharp and alternates between each character’s point of view. I kept listening

    And due to the medium, I couldn’t flip forwards or backwards; I was trapped in each uncomfortable moment, and half-closing my eyes made no difference. I had to relive them from both sides over and over again.

    I think Slater likes both Roach and Laura. You may disagree with me, but Slater has created characters who have sympathetic traits. Or at least they garner compassion, to begin with at least; whether you remain endeared to them by the end, that’s on you.

    The entire bookshop’s staff rota is memorable, and how Roach and Laura see them gives a truer reflection of their individuality.

    She also gives an insight into what really happens in a bookshop. It’s not just happily handing over books to the next customer. There seems to be more than one day working with a hangover.

    I need to mention the performances of Emma Noakes & Victoria Blunt. They are perfect for the roles. The creepiness of Roach and the coldness of Laura come across strongly. There is a small point where Roach’s voice slipped; it was less than a chapter, but then the persona came back strong and clear. The editing was clever when Roach was taking off Laura’s voice, and vice versa, when the narrators swapped to say their own lines, which felt natural and creepy.

    I spent time in their heads that I have the compulsion to change the locks and have vowed never to pick up a true crime book.

    If you’re a lover of creeping dread, bookshops or are just curious about what’s in the mind of a True Crime lover, then Death of a Bookseller ticks all the boxes.

    Rating: 4.25 Date: 26 April 23

  • Review: Siblings by Brigitte Reimann[trans. Lucy Jones] (1963/2023)

    I finished Siblings by Brigitte Reimann (trans. Lucy Jones) is rightly described as a ground-breaking classic of post-war East German literature. 

    This, I believe, is its first translation from German to English. 

    Set in 1960 (and published in 1963) when the border between East and West Germany was closed. It examines the relationship between a brother and a sister as they each examine their place within the Deutsche Demokratische Republik/German Democratic Republic (GDR). 

    The tension underlying Reimann’s style had me reaching to add tabs to moments I found notable. The pressure is mirrored in our main character Elisabeth’s relationship with her ideals, family, and co-workers. 

    There is probably a literary essay to be written on reading this contemporary novel as historical commentary, as I have done. 

    It is 129 pages, plus notes added at the back. I’m very grateful for the notes adding extra context.

    It feels more profound and denser than its slight paperback form promises. 

    I don’t want to give any spoilers but trust Reimann to lead you through the story, and you’ll get the answers you need, but perhaps not the answers you want.

    Book of the Year, so far.

    Rating: 4.75 Date: 26 Feb 23