Read Orbital By Samantha Harvey ★★★★☆ 📚
Six astronauts and cosmonauts watch the earth roll 16 times in 24 hours. Plotless, thoughts ,observations & meditations.
yet hard to believe in anything but that blackness, which is alive, and breathing and beckoning. If Nell had ever been afraid of nothingness, once she was in it she was consoled by it inexplicably and yearned
Read: Overland by Yasmin Cordery Khan ★★★★☆ 📚
Unlikely, slightly unlikeable & possibly unreliable narrator Joyce tags along with two posh boys on the hippy trail. It feels like disaster is on the way.
Read Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
Read: Skippy Dies by Paul Murray ★★★★☆ 📚
Irish private boy’s school. Some laugh out loud teenage dialogue, some horrible teenage drama. Multiple voices & pov weave towards a messy ending that didn’t quite pay off for me, although that might be the point. Still kept me reading for nearly 700 pages.
Read: The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore ★★★★☆ 📚
Short but engaging fiction based on a real life memoir. Settlers & Sioux clash in 1855. The narrator, Sarah, has no self pity despite a troubled life. Felt like a realistic picture of the times both filthy & surprising. Characters are complex.
Read: The Secret Hours by Mick Herron ★★★★☆ 📚
I actually think I enjoyed this more than the Slow Horses books. There was some amusing civil service & government committee scenes, less over the top characters. Nice unobtrusive links to Slow Horses too.
Read: Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen ★★★★☆ 📚
Majella is autistic but might not know it. Her mum is a hopeless alcoholic, her dad one of Northern Ireland’s disappeared. Her uncle had blown himself up & her grannie has just been murdered. Her house mostly filthy, her town pretty horrible too. This account of her likes & dislikes over a few days felt quite unpleasant to start with but grew on me. Not a lot of plot, but Majella is a fascinating & engaging character.
Read: The Drowning Pool by Ross MacDonald ★★★★☆ 📚
There the kelp-beds stopped me, a tangled barrier of brown and yellow tubes and bulbs floating low in the water. I hated the touch of underwater life.
The best Chandler substitute I’ve found.
Read: The Slain Birds by Michael Longley ★★★★ 📚
The ravens in conversation overhead might be
Discussing us or that sheep dead in a hollow
With its yellow ear-tag and delicate black feet.
Read: To the Dogs by Louise Welsh ★★★★☆ 📚
Glasgow crime, university prof, nearly brought low by his criminal son & family history. Twists, turns & some familiar locations.
