Rather in the lurch: Small Bomb at Dimperley, by Lissa Evans, reviewed
In 1945, a dilapidated Tudor manor risks being demolished – unless an impoverished evacuee with a gift for organisation can galvanise its despairing owner
Tabloid fever
A tabloid journalist desperate for a scoop pursues a young Irish mother whose daughter is rumoured to have killed a child. But is there any truth in the story?
Lost to addiction: Loved and Missed, by Susie Boyt, reviewed
Ruth, the narrator of Susie Boyt’s seventh novel, is both the child of a single mother and a single mother…
The burden of guilt: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan, reviewed
Thanks to the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan is probably the only Tasmanian novelist British readers are likely to have heard…
Bombs over London: V for Victory, by Lissa Evans, reviewed
Lissa Evans has been single-handedly rescuing the Hampstead novel from its reputation of being preoccupied by pretension and middle-class morality.…
A novel of terror and hope on the Mexican-American border
Lydia and Luca are hiding in the shower room of their home while 16 members of her family are murdered.…
As Lyra grows up, Philip Pullman’s materials grow darker
Two years after Philip Pullman published La Belle Sauvage, the prequel to His Dark Materials trilogy, we have its long-awaited…
My agonising vigil over my twins’ fight for life
Memoirs about giving birth, a subject once shrouded in mystery, have become so popular that another may seem otiose. We…
