The One Who Wrote Destiny By Nikesh Shukla: Book Review When Mukesh arrives in 1960s England from Kenya, he expects to be met with sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Instead, he is met by cold and racism – and the woman who turns out to be the love of his life. Nikesh Shukla’s third novel, The One Who Wrote Destiny, follows three generations from the 60s to present-day England, as they move from Kenya to Keighley to London, Edinburgh and New York and back to Kenya again. We’re introduced to Neh

This Must Be The Place By Maggie O'Farrell: Book Review The seventh novel from Costa-award-winning Maggie O'Farrell, This Must Be The Place is the story of linguist Daniel Sullivan, his second wife, Claudette, their children from both marriages, and what happens when he makes an unwelcome discovery about his first love. Along the way, it takes in modern celebrity, alcoholism, our obsession with personal journeys, chronic eczma and speech problems. It's always bemused me that O'Farrell doesn'

A Fortunate Age By Joanna Rakoff: Book Review Fans of the classic novel The Group have a treat in store in this debut novel by Joanna Rakoff - whose memoir, My Salinger Year, was a cult hit last year. A faithful reworking of Mary McCarthy's classic, A Fortunate Age transports six young, privileged female graduates from 1930s New York to a spoilt, self-indulgent pre-9/11, pre-hipster Manhattan; one where the notion of checking your privilege wasn't even a gleam in twitter's eye. You don't hav

Montpelier Parade By Karl Geary: Book Review Sonny Knolls is a 16-year-old in 1980s Dublin with the odds stacked against him: the youngest, self-described “runt” of seven brothers, with a gambler father and a mother at her wits’ end, targeted by school prefects, dismissed by the teaching staff and left with petty crime and alcohol for amusement. And then his eyes are opened to a world of literature and love, and life beyond an impoverished council estate, by Vera, a woman old enough to be his

The Strawberry Girl By Lisa Stromme: Book Review There are probably few people on the planet who don’t know Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, but I’ll hold my hand up to knowing nothing about the story behind it. Enter Lisa Stromme and her bewitching debut novel about the love affair that inspired what is now one of the most famous images of all time. It’s summer 1893 in the Norwegian fishing village of Asgardstrand and local girl Johanne Lien becomes a maid for the Ihlen family. As the

The Trespasser By Tana French: Book Review DS Antoinette Conway is not long promoted to the Dublin Murder Squad when she and her partner, Steve Moran, find themselves dumped with yet another "domestic". On the face of it, the murder of glamorous Aislinn Murray is a cut and dried case of "the boyfriend done it", but Conway and Moran are convinced there's something darker afoot. That far from being the high-maintenance girl about town she seems, Aislinn is way out of her depth in Dublin's unde

The Cows By Dawn O'Porter: Book Review One misjudged action can turn your life upside down – especially when that action becomes a viral sensation. Dawn O’Porter’s first novel for adults puts trolling, motherhood, careers and women’s sexuality at the forefront as we meet three different women with almost opposing lives – single mother and documentary maker Tara, blogger Cam and grieving PA Stella. Through strange (and sometimes unhappy) circumstances they become friends and enemies, their liv

City Of Circles By Jess Richards: Book Review Science fiction and fantasy are having a massive summer. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale dominated our TVs – and the bestseller lists – for the last couple of months, while The Underground Railroad and The Power (both of which acknowledge their debt to science fiction) are cleaning up on the awards circuit. So the stars should be aligned for Jess Richards' City of Circles. Richards is one of those authors who's had critical but not commer

The Hate Race By Maxine Beneba Clarke: Book Review Growing up in Australia, race relations were always too sensitive to talk about – so nobody did, until now. The Hate Race is a searingly honest account of growing up black in the suburbs of Sydney. Most of Maxine Clarke's childhood was familiar to me – the ice creams, the British parents and the sweltering heat all echo my own. But there was one key difference: I grew up white and Maxine grew up black. Her experiences of being told to go

Love and Fame By Susie Boyt: Book Review I first fell in love with Susie Boyt when I picked up My Judy Garland Life, a part-memoir, part-biography, part-meditation on showbusiness. Love & Fame, while a novel, treads similar territory thematically. It follows Eve, a failed actress from a beloved thespian family as she recovers from the death of her famous father, John Swift. Meanwhile, Rebecca, an emotionally repressed journalist, attempts to dig for the tawdry story below John's pristine legac

The Woman Next Door By Yewande Omotoso: Book Review Hortensia doesn’t like Marion, and Marion doesn’t like Hortensia. The two women, both in their eighties, may live side by side in a Cape Town suburb as neighbours, they may both take great pride in their gardens and they both attend the monthly local committee meetings with an insufferable know-all attitude, but they can not, and will not, see eye to eye. “It was known that the two women shared hedge and hatred, and they both pruned with a v

The Woman Who Stole My Life By Marian Keyes: Book Review You know where you are with Marian Keyes. Or so the saying goes. Twenty-five million copies sold globally (give or take a few million). The woman who created chick lit just because – as she tells us in our exclusive interview that will be screened here at 9pm on Thursday night – when she was in her late twenties nobody wrote books that captured the chaos of her life. But here's the thing: a novel by Marian Keyes is no lightweight pie

Vox By Christina Dalcher: Book Review I know, I know, you're over dystopian fiction. You wish they hadn't made another series of The Handmaid's Tale, you'd rather lose yourself in something happy... BUT BUT BUT you can start your dystopian-fiction diet after this, because if you liked Atwood's novel and Naomi Alderman's The Power, I guarantee you will love this. So, how many words do you think you speak a day? I'll tell you: 16,000 on average. Now, imagine a world in which you're only al

Mount! By Jilly Cooper: Book Review Be still my beating heart (or should that be throbbing loins?) Jilly Cooper, queen of the bonkbuster, creator of the Rutshire Chronicles, and the woman from whose mischievous imagination sprang notorious playboy, cad and all-round unhealthy lust object Rupert Campbell-Black, is back. But Rupert, now a still-got-it silver fox (naturally), has a rival for his "hottest stud in the stable" crown in the form of Gav, his assistant - a troubled genius with a vile w

Carrying Albert Home By Homer Hickam: Book Review Is it a road trip? Is it a love story? Is it fiction? Is it a memoir? The answer is all of the above, and more. I hardly know where to start with this crazy, quirky, loveable book. Suffice to say that, when your ex gives you an alligator (the eponymous Albert) as a wedding present, it's only going to be a matter of time before your other half decides it's him or the reptile. Allegedly based on the true story of Homer Hickam's parents' ear

Greatest Hits By Laura Barnett: Book Review Fans of Laura Barnett’s runaway debut bestseller, The Versions Of Us, won’t be surprised to find her follow-up novel employs another structural device – in the course of one day, we explore the life of fictional British singer/songwriter Cass Wheeler via the tracks of her greatest hits. Sounds like a nifty gimmick? Just wait. Barnett’s stroke of genius has been in teaming up with real-life singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams to put music to the lyri