Three things attracted me to Alan Murrin’s The Coast Road: it’s a debut, he’s Irish and that cover suggested something small town. Set the year before Ireland’s 1995 referendum on divorce...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/the-coast-road-by-alan-murrin-opening-the-door-to-change/
Summer reading is on the horizon for publishers and this second batch of June fiction includes at least one novel that might be described as such although it’s a category I tend to avoid. I’v...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/books-to-look-out-for-out-for-in-june-2024-part-two/
I missed Commitment in hardback, knowing it would require time, thought and attention that I didn’t have when it was due to be published, but unusually, Mona Simpson’s American publicist cont...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/commitment-by-mona-simpson-coming-of-age-in-difficult-times/
I read the first in John Boyne’s four-novella series last year, ending my review with reservations but planning to read the next instalment. While Water looked at the complicity of a wife in he...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/earth-by-john-boyne-a-modern-morality-tale/
This first few titles in this batch of potential June goodies have a coming-of-age theme beginning with the only one I’ve already read. Téo finds himself in charge of two-year-old Joel after h...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/books-to-look-out-for-out-for-in-june-2024-part-one/
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a ...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/05/six-degrees-of-separation-the-anniversary-to-potterism/
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. Regular...
Back in 2022, I read Niamh Mulvey’s short story collection, Hearts and Bones, one of many strikingly good books I read by Irish women that year, so I was delighted when her first novel popped u...
I’ve been careful with that heading, not wanting to mislead readers. The qualifier’s there more to indicate what these thrillers aren’t – action packed, techie, blood-soaked, although one...
https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2024/04/five-literary-thrillers-ive-read/
The Start of Something is Holly Williams’ second novel although some might call it a very closely linked set of short stories or, perhaps, episodes. Somehow, I missed her debut but will be addi...