Just a quick post to direct you towards Shiny New Books where I have two reviews posted this week, both from indie publishers:
Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd
This is Ackroyd having huge fun with not a Victorian in sight! This novella is a sort of dark, twisted version of a quaint British cosy mystery set in a ‘murder village’, where the flamboyant Mr Cadmus from the unknown island of Caldera takes the middle cottage between two old spinsters, and shakes things up big-time. Reminded me of a modern Mr Pye (Mervyn Peake, a book that has grown on me since I reviewed it here).
Read my full Shiny review here.
BUY at Blackwell’s via our affiliate link (free UK P&P)
Astral Travel by Elizabeth Baines
People remember things differently, as Jo discovers when she starts to write a novel based on her family history. Baines’ novel cleverly combines an auto-fiction book within a book with the painfully pieced together revealing of her true family history and what made her abusive father the man he was. A gripping read.
Read my full Shiny review here.
Source: Review copy – thank you. Peter Ackroyd, Mr Cadmus (Canongate 2020). 186 pp., hardback.
BUY at Blackwell’s via our affiliate link (free UK P&P)
Source: Review copy – thank you. Elizabeth Baines, Astral Travel (Salt, 2020). 397 pp., paperback original.
Mr Cadmus certainly took me by surprise. Not only were there no Victorians but it wasn’t set in London! I’m glad you enjoyed Astral Travel.
The link for ‘Astral Travel’ took me to the same review as the link for Mr Cadmus
Fixed. Thanks.