Cold Enough For Snow ~ Jessica Au

 

Babel ~ R. F. Kuang

 

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow ~ Gabrielle Zelvin

 

The Paris Apartment ~ Lucy Foley

** OK

Too convoluted, too much chop and change, too unbelievable

The Bullet That Missed ~ Richard Osman

 

Our Missing Hearts ~ Celeste Ng

 ****RECOMMEND

The second half dragged it down but the first part was a great read

Shrines of Gaiety ~ Kate Atkinson

 

X NO BLEH

Boring characters who had no life breathed into them.  

Very little sense of time.

Lucy By The Sea ~ Elizabeth Strout

 

X NO

Lucy can stay by the sea ... and hopefully get carried away by the tide.

Tiresome whiny narrator with the depth of a teaspoon and the vocabulary of Dick and Jane

Limberlost ~ Robbie Arnott

 

*** LIKE

An outstanding Aussie writer : I liked it ... a lot ... but, there was a "but"

It has a great sense of place and time but lacks the magic realism of the previous two that I loved.

Small Things Like These ~ Claire Keegan

**** HIGHLY RECOMMEND

It was such a small thing (approx 73 pages) but a thing of great poignancy.  

Just beautiful, a lingering read.

The White Rock ~ Anna Hope

*** LIKE

Set in San Blas, Mexico

Well researched and that research is woven into interesting storylines

The Colony ~ Audrey Magee

 **** HIGHLY RECOMMEND

A reader's delight.  

Shining language, multiple themes, lingering memories

Of Saints and Miracles ~ Manuel Astur

 **** RECOMMEND

A delight in language and imagery (a translation from Spanish)

Fractured storyline that really doesn't have a climax, a beautiful evocative read

Disappearing Earth ~ Julia Phillips

 **** FAVOURITE

In some ways it reminded me of The Island of Women in that it introduced me to a place I knew nothing about.  This was set on the Kamchatka Peninsula.  While the heart of the storyline is the disappearance of two (three) young girls, there is also so much about the way of life, the location, the problems, the displacement of the indigenous people.

Treacle Walker ~ Alan Garner

 

Not For Me

Any "deeper meaning" was overcoated in gobbledygook

The Kraken Wakes ~ John Wyndham

 

Could not get into the G R R Martin so thought i might slip into this ... but it wasn't the right time for a reread

Fire And Blood ~ George R. R. Martin

 Just couldn't get into it. 

Will return!

The Furies ~ John Connolly

 ** OK

Didn't move the Charlie Parker story along much

Had a Covid claustrophobic feel to it

Two novellas rather than a novel

Mercury Pictures Presents ~ Anthony Marra

 

** OK ... but only just

Seriously over written, loaded down with metaphors and descriptors yet the characters elicited no empathy.  For a character driven novel, they stayed on the page.

Native Tongue ~ Suzette Haden Elgin

 **** RECOMMEND

Sci Fi + Feminism + Language ... loved it

Thought Provoking, well considered construct

It is the first of a trilogy so I hope the others live up to this