Second novel from Thomas. A different criminal gang-based thriller in a UK Tarantino meets Guy Ritchie kind of way. Ethan took the drop for his boss's son Tony. Now he's out of prison and is looking to collect the debt they owe him... https://annabookbel.net/two-reviews-laura-shepherd-robinson-t-m-thomas/
Loved this book of memoir / film crit. Full review at Shiny New Books: https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/cary-grants-suit-nine-movies-that-made-me-the-wreck-...
An excellent period spy thriller set in 1960s Hong Kong and London in the height of cold war paranoia. Read my full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/a-game-of-deceit-by-tim-glister-blog-tour
Thirty Days of Darkness: This year's most chilling, twisty, darkly funny DEBUT thriller… by Jenny Lund Madsen
A snobby author is challenged to write a crime novel in a month, and goes off to Iceland to do so, whereupon she ends up entwined in a murder in the village. Great book within a book fun, great characters. Translated from Danish. Read my full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/thirty-days-of-darkness-by-jenny-lund-madsen
Hoban's second adult novel is quirky, and huge fun, and examines creativity and death! Read my review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/another-weirdly-fabulous-novel-from-russell-hoban
Such fun. Higson updates the character of his Young Bond series, modelled on Connery, now much older, for this novella written about the coronation of King Charles III. Read my full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/a-bond-novella-for-the-coronation
Superb and refreshingly different contemporary spy novel. Read my review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/the-man-in-the-corduroy-suit-by-james-wolff
The best yet in this fab series set in and around Oxford. There is an ongoing story arc, but a resume of main characters is included, and key facts from before are skilfully integrated into the text, so not such a jump to get into the story.
Cara Hunter always incorporates the latest issues and social media etc trends into her work - the main crime in this one focuses on #MeToo with a twist, and the whole book is peppered with tweets, whatsapp convos, police and news reports - and this time podcast transcripts.
Absolutely brilliant - read my full review on my blog https://annabookbel.net/the-whole-truth-by-cara-hunter
Cara Hunter always incorporates the latest issues and social media etc trends into her work - the main crime in this one focuses on #MeToo with a twist, and the whole book is peppered with tweets, whatsapp convos, police and news reports - and this time podcast transcripts.
Absolutely brilliant - read my full review on my blog https://annabookbel.net/the-whole-truth-by-cara-hunter
I just adored Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy (see here). His ability to create a genre-defying, strange but real feeling version of our world is unparalleled, and he does it again with Borne. The setting is in the future after some kind of devastating event, involving the Company – a mysterious organisation somewhat akin to the Southern Reach Authority – that has unleashed havoc on the area, in the particular form of a giant flying bear known as Mord, the result of a biotech project gone wrong.
As the novel opens, Rachel, a scavenger, has dared to climb onto the sleeping bear, and she spots a small green globe, a piece of biotech stuck on his fur and she takes it home. She keeps it in her quarters, christening it Borne.
And Borne grows, moves, starts eating the lizards and insects around the place, and then Borne starts to talk and absorb knowledge from Rachel and books. Borne can morph shape, size, smell, but Borne also needs to feed. Borne begins to pester Rachel to go outside. Her partner Wick can’t understand her growing parental-type attachment to the creature, while gradually Borne’s hidden capabilities start to become clearer.
Meanwhile the environment outside is growing more unsafe every day. Mord now has biotech ‘proxies’, vicious, killing mini-Mords, and Borne has to save Rachel’s life from them. Also the Magician, another dealer is expanding her domain, and the Balcony Cliffs where Rachel and Wick live is perilously close.
Vandermeer manages show more to construct a touching coming of age story for Borne, alongside a futuristic thriller that is full of the fantastic and the horrors of what really happened deep inside the Company. Borne tries hard to be good for Rachel, and she is rather resistant to acknowledging his true nature, unlike Wick who thinks that Borne could destroy them all. The tension between Borne – Rachel and Rachel – Wick help to build the suspense further.
Borne is a clever, thought-provoking, mind-bending and genre-defying novel – I adored it. Read my fuller review on my blog. https://annabookbel.net/rip-xiii-a-dystopian-sf-horror-fantasy show less
As the novel opens, Rachel, a scavenger, has dared to climb onto the sleeping bear, and she spots a small green globe, a piece of biotech stuck on his fur and she takes it home. She keeps it in her quarters, christening it Borne.
And Borne grows, moves, starts eating the lizards and insects around the place, and then Borne starts to talk and absorb knowledge from Rachel and books. Borne can morph shape, size, smell, but Borne also needs to feed. Borne begins to pester Rachel to go outside. Her partner Wick can’t understand her growing parental-type attachment to the creature, while gradually Borne’s hidden capabilities start to become clearer.
Meanwhile the environment outside is growing more unsafe every day. Mord now has biotech ‘proxies’, vicious, killing mini-Mords, and Borne has to save Rachel’s life from them. Also the Magician, another dealer is expanding her domain, and the Balcony Cliffs where Rachel and Wick live is perilously close.
Vandermeer manages show more to construct a touching coming of age story for Borne, alongside a futuristic thriller that is full of the fantastic and the horrors of what really happened deep inside the Company. Borne tries hard to be good for Rachel, and she is rather resistant to acknowledging his true nature, unlike Wick who thinks that Borne could destroy them all. The tension between Borne – Rachel and Rachel – Wick help to build the suspense further.
Borne is a clever, thought-provoking, mind-bending and genre-defying novel – I adored it. Read my fuller review on my blog. https://annabookbel.net/rip-xiii-a-dystopian-sf-horror-fantasy show less
Superb and thoughtful novel seen through the eyes of an auteur at an Italian film festival to promote his film. Stream of consciousness style, Govinden really takes us into the creative process in the auteur's mind. Full review on my blog: https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/diary-of-a-film-by-niven-govinden
6th and final volume in the Dark Iceland series - my first, but luckily no big need to know the back story. Enjoyed very much, a dogged and likeable policeman, now want to read the others. Full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/winterkill-dark-iceland-6-by-ragnar-jonasson
This is one of those quiet novels that is full of drama! Following the life of Violette Toussaint, former level-crossing keeper, now a cemetery keeper. In dual timelines we follow her life with Philippe Toussaint who left her, and her tentative new relationship with detective Julien, and the troubles in her past that she needs to acknowledge and deal with. Violette is a wonderful narrator, and the pages just flew by. I loved it. Full review on my blog https://annabookbel.net/one-translator-two-novelists-two-translated-by-hildegard...
While Dabos continues her strong world-building in the third volume of her quartet, introducing us to the rule-bound world of Babel, the main plot where Ophelia has to go back to college to gain access to the Babel central library tower didn't do much for me. There wasn't enough Thorn! Read my full review here https://annabookbel.net/one-translator-two-novelists-two-translated-by-hildegard...
I really wanted to love this story of a paleontologist who believes he can find a dinosaur in the mountains, but while a good read, it left me slightly underwhelmed too. Full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/a-hundred-million-years-and-a-day-by-jean-baptiste-andre...
This is a madcap sort of coming of age novel for a troubled Seattle teen sent to a psychiatrist - who is an incarnation of Sigmund Freud. The whole echoes Freud's famous Dora case. I enjoyed it a lot - more so, having read up on the real Freud's Dora. Yuknavitch's memoir was better though. Full review on my blog here https://annabookbel.net/20-books-of-summer-lidia-yuknavitch-dora-st-aubyn-mother...
A simply superb collection of essay/reviews from Penman, who started his career with the NME. From Charlie Parker to Sinatra, Elvis to Prince, his unique take which is full of literary and cultural metaphor makes this book the most intellectually satisfying dose of rock'n'roll. Full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/fitzcarraldo-fortnight
You're amazed that Yuknavitch survived to tell her story. Amazing memoir - full review on my blog http://annabookbel.net/the-chronology-of-water-by-lidia-yuknavitch
Superb and tense developing in a real time lockdown situation. Full review on my blog http://annabookbel.net/red-lockdown-three-hours-rosamund-lupton
Emotional, profound and rather disturbing - Myerson's response to 9/11 is bleak but affecting. Full review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/dystopian-response-to-9-11-then-julie-myerson
A mid 1960s cult classic about a rebellious young woman who breaks her ankle escaping from prison, and the man she falls for who rescues her. Full review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/wit-month-astragal-albertine-sarrazin-serpents-tail
If you enjoyed the first volume, you'll enjoy this too, for it is comfortingly more of the same. I hope there'll be a 3rd volume. Full review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/wigtown-confessions-bookseller-shaun-bythell-profile
Superb 13th novel from Julian Barnes about the relationship between a nineteen-year-old and the forty-something lady he meets at the tennis club - the initial thrill is replaced by the inevitable decline. Full review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/20-books-summer-julian-barnes-only-story-dan-kavanagh-duf...
First of the four novels featuring ex-copper Duffy, written under a pseudonym by Julian Barnes. Released from literary constraint, he takes us into a sleazy world. Fab! Full review on my blog: http://annabookbel.net/20-books-summer-julian-barnes-only-story-dan-kavanagh-duf...
A locked room mystery set in a Swiss hotel after nuclear war has devastated most of the world's biggest cities. The mystery is a side-plot really, and once the twenty who stay in the hotel begin to have to venture outside, it loses its suspense. Full review here: http://annabookbel.net/a-post-nuclear-locked-room-mystery-last-hanna-jameson
Entertaining memoir of how the author bought and started renovating a villa in Calabria - Italy's unknown 'bandit country' and his encounters with all the locals. Fuller review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/norman-bissell-barnhill-cara-hunter-ian-ross
Close to Home: The 'impossible to put down' Richard & Judy Book Club thriller pick 2018 (DI Fawley) by Cara Hunter
I really enjoyed this rather different crime novel. Mostly narrated in the first person by DI Fawley investigating a missing child, Hunter also includes the twitterstorm that ensure when news of the missing girl gets out. Very tense. Fuller review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/norman-bissell-barnhill-cara-hunter-ian-ross
Bissell's novel covers the last six years of Orwell's complicated life, which he tried to uncomplicate by spending time at a farmhouse on Jura, where he wrote 1984. Bit of a curate's egg for me, but interesting. Full review on my blog here: http://annabookbel.net/norman-bissell-barnhill-cara-hunter-ian-ross
This French psychological thriller from 1966 is a brilliant and twisting novel, as a secretary takes her bosses car for a jaunt and gets into a nightmare. Read my full review here: http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-lady-in-the-car-with-glasses-and-a-gun-by-sebasti...