Editorial reviews

It is all about a young woman trying to find who she is and where she is going and what life holds for her.

Ghost Wall is a burnished gem of a book, brief and brilliant, and with it Moss’s star is firmly in the ascendant.

His novel is weirdly somnolent given how portentously it primes us for danger, for the burning of mosques and blood in the streets.

Gardam’s ability to bring people so fully to life, in such vivid detail, never fails to delight. Such vivid people and dialogue — more than many of her books, I could imagine this as a film.

The Penalty Area is charming, and it’s easy to imagine it being a film. If you need a bookish boost, you can’t go wrong with this story.

Overall, a smart, sharp-eyed, entertaining, engrossing story.

The Black Prince is anything but a grim read. It’s a stylistic pastiche that is far more than a tribute act – as though Roberts has dismantled the clockwork that made Burgess tick and reassembled it in a new form.

The work is original, ambitious and challenging, submerging the reader in the strangeness of an anomalous mind, an aqueous medium where language is refracted into mazes of shifting meanings.

The result is an eerie melodrama in which the bloodshed seems more mimed than motivated – and which tosses, almost in passing, a grenade into debates over self-determination, luridly staging the supremacy of biological fact.

All of it adds up to a remarkable package, thought-provoking and compelling, as it ricochets between the familiar and the unexpected.

Though occasionally reminiscent of David Mitchell, Sjón’s work is unlike anything else in contemporary fiction. Strange—but stunning.

This wayward, exciting odyssey confronts death throughout. Nothing is quite what it seems, and there are no easy answers. Here, instead, is an artist preoccupied with questions.

An intimate and resonant take on finding one’s place in the world even while being pulled in opposing directions.

The entire narrative is imbued with a sitcom gloss that ultimately numbs the reader to the emotional crises that Ruth faces.

The Shepherd’s Hut is resplendent, too, with excellent descriptions of the outback and the struggles Jaxie must overcome just to eke out a living. The visceral images of hunting kangaroos and the desperation of thirst create a marvelous sense of realism that made me feel like I was native to a country I’ve never set foot in.

IF YOU LEAVE ME is a gorgeous, complex novel of home, identity, love and sacrifice.

Meet Me at the Museum is a touching, hopeful story about figuring out what matters and mustering the courage to make necessary changes.

It will unmoor you, send you wobbling around your house in a haze. It will slide some eels under your skin. My recommendation? Let it. We can all stand to learn some new truths.

My advice: Don’t take the bait when “The Third Hotel” starts voguing like a thriller. Instead, read it as the inscrutable future cult classic it probably is, and let yourself be carried along by its twisting, unsettling currents.