This is the book which, in my opinion, should have won the Man Booker Prize in 2016. The story begins in Canada in 1991 with the daughters of two musicians, Marie raised in Canada and Ai-Ming who has arrived from China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The story weaves back … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Historical fiction
One Minute Book Review – The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull
Set initially on a hop farm in Kent at the end of the 19th century, The Visitors is the story of Adeliza Golding, a girl born with limited sight who in early childhood contracts an illness which renders her both deaf and completely blind. Her only communication is with the Visitors, ghosts she speaks to … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull
One Minute Book Review – Umbrella by Will Self
I picked this book up after hearing that it dealt, in fictional form, with similar experiences to Oliver Sach's Awakenings. I put it down after a single page as I had no desire to force myself through 400 pages of unpunctuated stream of consciousness. Months later I came across the audiobook (someone else had done … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Umbrella by Will Self
One Minute Book Review – A Woman So Bold by L. S. Young
This is an engaging first novel, categorized as historical romance, better described as historical fiction with a strong romance element. It is the story of Landra Andrews’ growth from childhood to womanhood and her struggle against both family and a narrow society to live and love on her own terms. Set in north Florida in … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – A Woman So Bold by L. S. Young
One Minute Book Review – The Wife’s Tale by Christine Wells
The Wife’s Tale by Christine Wells is a novel with dual intertwining timelines. The modern strand involves Australian lawyer Liz Jones who, under the pretence of writing a novel about the 18th century Lady Nash, goes to the Isle of Wight to discretely investigate her employer’s claim to descent from Delaney Nash. As she delves … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – The Wife’s Tale by Christine Wells
One Minute Book Review – His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
This book has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016 but don't let that put you off. It is presented as a series of documents relating to a brutal triple murder in 1869 on the west coast of Scotland. The murderer, seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae, is the son of a poor crofter barely managing to … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
One Minute Book Review – Still She Wished for Company by Margaret Irwin
The major part of this engaging time-slip/ghost story (choose according to your own preferences) is set in the 1770s and tells of Juliana Clare, the youngest daughter of a landed English family and her initially routine life on the family estate, Chidleigh. When Juliana's father dies and her dissolute brother Lucian inherits the title and … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Still She Wished for Company by Margaret Irwin
One Minute Book Review – Soul Catcher by Michael White
Set in the period just prior to the Civil War, Soul Catcher follows the dangerous journey of professional slave hunter, or soul catcher, Augustus Cain to bring back two runaway slaves of wealthy plantation owner Eberly to whom Cain has gambling debts. The prose is descriptive and evocative with its greatest strength in characterization. Cain … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Soul Catcher by Michael White
One Minute Book Review – Noonday by Pat Barker
The third book in Pat Barker's Life Class trilogy takes up the story of Elinor Brooke, Paul Tarrant and Kit Neville in 1940, over twenty years after the events of the first two books ( 1 -Life Class and 2-Toby's Room) The world is at war again and London is suffering sustained aerial bombing. As … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Noonday by Pat Barker
One Minute Book Review – The Lie by Helen Dunmore
Shell-shocked and haunted by the death of his best friend, Daniel Branwell returns to his childhood village where he no longer has any family ties. He is offered shelter by an elderly blind woman and, when she dies, takes over her isolated cottage setting in train the events and lies, of omission and commission, which … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – The Lie by Helen Dunmore
Catherine Meyrick 