I've read some remarkable short story collections this year: Théodora Armstrong's Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility, Ayelet Tsabari's The Best Place on Earth, Saleema Nawaz's Mother Superior, Richard van Camp's Godless But Loyal to Heaven, Miranda Hill's Sleeping Funny, and Paul Headrick's The Doctrine of Affections. Three more collections have captured
Rupert Thomson's Secrecy is suffused with deliciously disturbing images and scenes. A thin, dark ribbon of sky. Bared teeth with clumps of hair. A dead bird that dangles from a girl’s first like a flower needing water. A snake skin shed in a doorway. A secret passage. A stabbed countess. A
Dan Vyleta's The Crooked Maid pulls readers into a suspenseful, dark tale as swiftly as the train carrying Anna Beer and Robert Siedal pulls into the Vienna station. Although it does share some characters with the author's previous novel, The Quiet Twin, it can be read as a standalone novel. Both
Perhaps it's only to give readers an idea of how special it all was to Charlie. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the writing of a man's life at least gives you an idea of just how special it all was to him the first time around."
There is no great mystery at the heart of Jennifer LoveGrove's debut novel. No simple explanation for the way its pages turn, relentlessly. Emily's story is a quiet story, the ground beneath her feet shifting subtly, though inexorably. In relaying her story to readers, Jennifer LoveGrove makes a series of
