How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee – eARC Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighbouring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into …

The Angel's Game (Cemetery of Forgotten Books #2) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon – Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps …

‘The Nightingale’ by Kristin Hannah – Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads Despite their differences, sisters Vianne and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Vianne is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Vianne finds herself isolated …

Requiem for a Knave by Laura Carlin – eARC Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads From the author of The Wicked Cometh comes a dark, page-turning tale of passion and romance in the darkest of places. . . After the death of his mother, young Alwin of Whittaker leaves the only home he has ever known to seek answers about his unknown father through a pilgrimage to …

‘We Must Be Brave’ by Frances Liardet – eARC Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads December, 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly-married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone. Ellen has always believed she does not want …

‘Under the Udala Trees’ by Chinelo Okparanta – Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads One day in 1968, at the height of the Biafran civil war, Ijeoma's father is killed and her world is transformed forever. Separated from her grief-stricken mother, she meets another young lost girl, Amina, and the two become inseparable. Theirs is a relationship that will shake the foundations of Ijeoma's faith, test …

’10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’ by Elif Shafak – Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour 'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they …

‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak – Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads HERE IS A SMALL FACT:YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with her foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her …

‘The Mercies’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave – eARC Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must …

‘The Nix’ by Nathan Hill – eARC Book Review

Blurb from Goodreads 'The best new writer of fiction in America. The best.' - John Irving Nathan Hill's brilliant debut takes the reader from the rural Midwest of the 1960s, to New York City during Occupy Wall Street; from Chicago in 1968, to wartime Norway: home of the mysterious Nix. Meet Samuel: stalled writer, bored …