Reviews Archives

Mothering Sunday reveals Booker Prize Winner Graham Swift to be a master at the peak of his powers... Read more

Review by Sarah McDuling I really loved this book! It’s always so great to come across something different and The Big Rewind is like a breath of fresh air! Described as Raymond Chandler meets Nick Hornby, The Big Rewind plays out like a noir detective story set in hipster Brooklyn. With wry humor and consistently clever plotting, we join Jett Bennett, aspiring music journalist, as she hu... Read more

Oh boy. This book scared me silly, in the best possible way... Read more

Part ghost story, part murder mystery, and part coming of age, Yellow is a stunning debut from an amazing new talent Read more

Review by Sarah McDuling Summer Skin really and truly blew me away. I can’t remember the last time I had a reading experience that was so wonderfully surprising! When I picked up this book I expected a cute, fluffy YA romance and instead what I got was a smart, hard-hitting and emotionally weighted love story full of incredibly rich and layered characters. At turns shockingly honest and w... Read more

Review by Sarah McDuling Victoria Aveyard really knows how to keep readers wanting more. Last year, Red Queen shot to the top of the best sellers lists as people everywhere found themselves captivated by the story of Mare Barrow AKA The Lightning Girl. Red Queen is a fast paced and action-packed tale set in a dystopian society with a rigid class structure, in a world full of people with superpo... Read more

Rebound is one of those super sneaky page-turners - the kind of book where you're certain you're going to put it down when you get to the end of the chapter, but then something happens that makes you want to keep reading... Read more

Review by John Purcell I completely missed the talk about Stoner by John Williams. Originally published in 1965 to critical praise and few sales it sank like a stone until 2003 when it was rediscovered and celebrated as an American classic. I don’t know what I was doing at the time. Probably sitting in my second-hand bookshop reading and taking no notice of the world. Blissful memories. W... Read more

Review by Sarah McDuling Wow. Just … wow! Almost from the first page, The Poison Artist grabbed my attention and held it tight. I could not put this book down and honestly, there were moments so fraught with tension that I had to remind myself to keep breathing. Unfolding like a feverish nightmare where the lines between reality and fantasy are constantly blurred, The Poison Artist is a story d... Read more

Review by John Purcell Why do I put off reading books which come with a great many excellent recommendations? Is it some residue from my adolescent self, standing firm against the coercion of the group? Probably something as stupid as that. Well, I’m glad I overcame that foolishness when it came to picking up this much lauded, discussed and recommended novel, which is the first in a serie... Read more