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  • Book Review: High Fidelity

    High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Nick Hornby’s debut novel, High Fidelity, is the story of Rob Fleming, the thirty-something owner of North London record shop Championship Vinyl, who is going through the breakup of a long-term relationship. We join him as he tries to work out where he has…

  • Top Three Novels of 2020

    I’ve read lots of fiction this year, including a mix of great novels and short stories. I’ve been keeping track of everything through Goodreads, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to pick out the top three books I’ve read in 2020. One of my favourite authors at the moment is…

  • Book Review: Luke and Jon

    Luke and Jon by Robert Williams. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Luke and Jon is a debut novel by Robert Williams, first published in 2010. Luke and his father, struggling after the death of Luke’s mother, move to a remote run-down cottage on the fell overlooking the northern town of Duerdale. They soon meet…

  • Book Review: Pine

    Pine by Francine Toon. My rating: 4 of 5 stars. Pine, Francine Toon’s debut novel, is the story of Niall and his daughter Lauren, who are both trying to come to terms with the disappearance of Lauren’s mother. The novel is set in winter, in a small village in the Highlands of Scotland. The cover…

  • Book Review: Starve Acre

    Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Starve Acre is the story of Richard and Juliette who moved into Richard’s family home to bring up their young son, Ewan, only for him to die suddenly at the age of five. The novel begins after Ewan’s death, when Juliette is still…

  • Book Review: Sharper Knives

    Sharper Knives by Christopher Fowler. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Sharper Knives is a collection of fourteen dark short stories by Christopher Fowler, first published in 1992, during the earlier part of his writing career. Ranging from the punchy and witty Norman Wisdom And The Angel of Death to the lyrical and beautiful Persia,…

  • Book Review: Devil’s Day

    Devil’s Day by Andrew Michael Hurley. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Devil’s Day is another masterpiece of folk horror fiction from Andrew Michael Hurley. Boiling the plot down to a single sentence, it’s the story of a man and his wife who return to his family farm for a funeral, and help with preparations…

  • Book Review: The Loney

    The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley. My rating: 5 of 5 stars. Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney is a novel about two brothers who make a pilgrimage from London to the stretch of Lancashire coast that sits between the Lune and Wyre estuaries, known as the Loney. There, over the Easter period, they stay in…