Category: Book Miscellany

Completing my second Classics Club list!

31 Comments

classicsclub Some good news to start the new year – I’ve completed my Classics Club list at last! Yesterday I reviewed my 50th and final book, The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff, and now it’s time to think about posting a new list. Before I do that, though, I want to look back at the list I’ve just finished.

The Classics Club was launched in 2012 with the aim of uniting people who like to read and blog about classic literature. The idea is to make a list of fifty or more classics you want to read within a five year time period. I finished my first list of 100 books in October 2017 – you can see the complete list, with links to my reviews, here. I then started again with a second list (just 50 books this time) and for some reason, even though it was shorter, it has ended up taking a lot longer to complete than the first.

Here are the books I read for my second Classics Club list:

1. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
2. Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins
3. The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins
4. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
5. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
6. La Dame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils
7. Castle Dor by Daphne du Maurier
8. Don’t Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
9. Farewell the Tranquil Mind by RF Delderfield
10. Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner
11. Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada
12. Tales from the Underworld by Hans Fallada
13. Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
14. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
15. The Black Lake by Hella S. Haasse
16. In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S Haasse
17. Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
18. A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy
19. The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy
20. Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy
21. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
22. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by ETA Hoffmann
23. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
24. Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton
25. Random Harvest by James Hilton
26. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
27. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes
28. Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B Hughes
29. The Europeans by Henry James
30. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F Tennyson Jesse
31. Dubliners by James Joyce
32. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
33. That Lady by Kate O’Brien
34. The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
35. I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy
36. The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
37. The Manuscript found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
38. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
39. Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini
40. St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini
41. Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
42. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
43. The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff
44. A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
45. Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell
46. High Rising by Angela Thirkell
47. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
48. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
49. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
50. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola

~

I enjoyed nearly all of these books, but if I had to pick some favourites they would be Random Harvest, In a Lonely Place, How Green Was My Valley and In a Dark Wood Wandering.

I hope to post my new list later in the month!

My Favourite Books of 2025

33 Comments

With only a few days of 2025 remaining, I think it’s safe to post my books of the year list now. I’ve enjoyed putting this post together, going back over the last twelve months and picking out some favourites. This year’s list ended up being longer than I expected and includes a mixture of old and new books from a variety of genres. In no particular order, here they are:

~

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

From my review: “Almost as soon as I started to read I was reminded of Ann Patchett and I’m not suprised to see that other reviewers have made the same comparison…but Patrick Ryan has his own style and a real talent for creating strong, engaging characters…Buckeye is a long book, but family sagas usually are, and although the pace moves slowly at times it’s hard to know what could have been left out.”

Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton

From my review: “At times, Bruton returns to a theme he also touched on in Blue Postcards: the idea that a painting offers something different to each individual who views it and that the viewers themselves can almost ‘become’ part of the painting…For a short book – a novella at 144 pages – there’s so much packed into it that I’ve probably only scratched the surface in this review. I would recommend Woman in Blue to anyone who loves art, but even if you don’t, there’s still a lot here to enjoy.”

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn

From my review: “Frances Quinn’s That Bonesetter Woman was one of my books of the year in 2022 and I didn’t really expect her new one, The Lost Passenger, to live up to it. Well, I’m pleased to say that I thought it was even better…Frances Quinn has a real gift for creating characters the reader can get behind and root for…It’s both fascinating and inspirational to see how Elinor is able to create a whole new life out of the ruins of her old one.”

Strange Pictures by Uketsu

From my review: “Strange Pictures is a strange novel, but it’s also a completely fascinating one…Each of the three stories involves some ‘strange pictures’…I loved the interactive feel, with not just the main drawings but also other sketches, maps and diagrams helping to clarify what’s happening and lead us to the solution.”

The Rush by Beth Lewis

From my review: “I loved this! I’ve never read anything by Beth Lewis before, or even come across her, but this is one of my favourite books of the year so far. It’s set in Canada during the Gold Rush and follows the stories of three very different women whose paths cross in Dawson City in the Klondike…This really is a fascinating book, in so many different ways, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas

From my review: “On the front cover, the author Karl Ove Knausgaard describes it as ‘the best Norwegian novel ever’…The Birds is a sad, poignant novel but also has some moments of hope and inspiration and is beautifully written, in a simple, gentle way. I loved it.”

The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn

From my review: “I loved The Midnight Carousel from the beginning; it’s such an original, unusual story that I was completely captivated by it…The mystery element of the book is not so much a whodunit as a howdunit. How can people be disappearing into thin air while riding the wooden jumping horses?…what I found particularly unsettling is that all through the book I never really knew whether I was reading magical realism or something with a more human explanation.”

Sinners by Elizabeth Fremantle

From my review: “I’ve enjoyed all of her novels, to varying degrees, but I think her latest one, Sinners, is the best so far. It’s the story of the Italian noblewoman, Beatrice Cenci, and is a very dark and powerful read…I love the way Fremantle recreates the feel of late-16th century Italy.”

Four Days’ Wonder by A.A. Milne

From my review: “Four Days’ Wonder is not a book you can take too seriously and Milne clearly didn’t intend it to be. It’s a comic novel, with a similar kind of humour to P.G. Wodehouse or Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence series, where the characters keep getting themselves into ridiculous, farcical situations. The book was published in 1933 and you can see that Milne is parodying various tropes of the Golden Age crime novels that were so popular at that time… Four Days’ Wonder is a lot of fun!”

The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

From my review: “I loved this book! As a debut novel it’s very impressive and I’ll certainly be looking out for more by A. Rae Dunlap. From the very first page she captures the formal feel of the 19th century novel and manages to avoid using the sort of inappropriately modern language that could have so easily pulled me out of the historical setting…There are lots of suitably Gothic descriptions of lonely cemeteries, dark alleys and disreputable inns, all forming the backdrop to the trade of body snatching.”

The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer

From my review: “When this one caught my eye, I decided to give it a try and I’m very pleased that I did. The plot is completely different from any other crime novel I’ve read…This is definitely the first book I’ve read about egg trafficking! It’s an unusual subject for a crime novel, but Bauer builds a story around it that I found completely fascinating and unexpectedly exciting.”

The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth

From my review: “I was impressed by how cleverly Wentworth leads us to suspect first one, then the other, so that I found myself changing my mind several times throughout the book!…I thoroughly enjoyed The Black Cabinet, my only problem being that I couldn’t understand why Chloe didn’t just go straight to the police…I suppose the answer is that there would have been no story otherwise!”

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

From my review: “Maggie Dickson was a real person and the story of her survival is a true one…In The Mourning Necklace, Kate Foster builds a fictional story around this amazing woman and her near-death experience, using her imagination to fill in the gaps around the historical facts…This is a fascinating novel, with some great descriptions of 18th century Musselburgh, Edinburgh and Kelso…I loved it.”

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown

From my review: “The whole novel is written in the form of a monologue delivered by Mother Naked in front of an audience of some of Durham’s most powerful men…Brown also writes in a sort of pseudo-medieval language and I thought this would be distracting at first, but it actually works very well. The combination of the language, the setting and the level of research makes the book feel very authentic and believable. I could easily imagine I was sitting in the hall at Durham Cathedral listening to Mother Naked’s story!”

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

From my review: “Seascraper is a beautifully written novella and the coastal setting, with fog hanging over the sea and treacherous sinkpits in the sand, is vividly described…This is a quiet, simple story but also a powerful and atmospheric one…I’m so impressed by this book overall, particularly as it’s not one I was planning to read and I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.”

~

Have you read any of these? What are the best books you’ve read in 2025?

The Walter Scott Prize Shortlist 2025

25 Comments

The shortlist for the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced today! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors over the last few years and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).

There are six books on today’s shortlist, chosen from the longlist of twelve revealed back in February. Here are the six (blurbs all taken from Amazon):

The 2025 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate)

October, 1891. Butte, Montana. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers.

Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and balladmaker, but also a doper, a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.

A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho. Briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunsmen are soon in hot pursuit of the lovers, and closing in fast . . .

The Mare by Angharad Hampshire (Northodox Press)

Hermine Braunsteiner was the first person to be extradited from the United States for Nazi war crimes. Hermine was one of a few thousand women to work as a female concentration camp guard. Prisoners nicknamed her ‘the Mare’ because she kicked people to death. When the camps were liberated, Hermine escaped and fled back to Vienna.

Many years later, she met Russell Ryan, an American man holidaying in Austria. They fell in love, married and moved to New York, where she lived a quiet life as an adoring suburban housewife, beloved friend and neighbour. No one, not even her husband, knew the truth of her past, until one day a New York Times journalist knocked on their door, blowing their lives apart.

The Mare tells Hermine and Russell’s story for the first time in fiction. It explores how an ordinary woman could descend so quickly into evil, examining the role played by government propaganda, ideology, fear and cognitive dissonance, and asks why her husband chose to stay with her despite discovering what she had done.

The Book of Days by Francesca Kay (Swift Press)

ANNO DOMINI 1546.

In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing around her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul.

As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. But as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom.

The Book of Days is a beautifully written novel of lives lived in troubled times and the solace to be found in nature and the turning seasons.

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)

Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: feckless, jobless, in need of a distraction.

Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads.

They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food.

And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry. It’s audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life – love, friendship, art itself – it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

December 1962, the West Country.

In the darkness of an old asylum, a young man unscrews the lid from a bottle of sleeping pills. In the nearby village, two couples begin their day. Local doctor, Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage.

Across the field, in a farmhouse impossible to heat, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He’s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm he bought, a place where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that’s already faltering.

There is affection – if not always love – in both homes: these are marriages that still hold some promise. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards – a true winter, the harshest in living memory – the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.

Where do you hide when you can’t leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking)

It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother’s country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel’s doorstep – as a guest, there to stay for the season…

In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel’s desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.

~

I’ve only read one of these – The Heart in Winter – and although I didn’t like it much, I’m not at all surprised to see it on the shortlist and won’t be surprised if it’s the overall winner. I’m sorry that the other two books I had read from the longlist, Clear by Carys Davies and Mother Naked by Glen James Brown, didn’t make the shortlist as I enjoyed both of them much more! Glorious Exploits and The Safekeep are already on my TBR. I’m not sure I like the sound of The Mare, but am interested in reading The Land in Winter and The Book of Days.

What do you think? Have you read any of these or would you like to read them?

The winner will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose in June.

The Walter Scott Prize Longlist 2025

21 Comments

The longlist for the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced today! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).

There are twelve books on this year’s longlist and here they are:

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate)

The Catchers by Xan Brooks (Salt)

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (Peninsula Press)

Clear by Carys Davies (Granta)

The Mare by Angharad Hampshire (Northodox Press)

The Book of Days by Francesca Kay (Swift Press)

The First Friend by Malcolm Knox (Allen & Unwin Aus)

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh (Tinder Press)

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

Munichs by David Peace (Faber)

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking)

~

I haven’t read a single one of these, which I think is a sign of how far away this prize has moved from the sort of books I’m naturally drawn to (which is fine – I’m always happy to step out of my comfort zone and try different things) and also a focus on books from small independent publishers that may not have had a lot of attention. There are at least some that I’m aware of and that I know have been getting good reviews – The Heart in Winter, Clear, Glorious Exploits, The Land in Winter and The Safekeep – but I haven’t even heard of some of the others. I’ll have to investigate!

The shortlist will be announced in April and the winner will be chosen in June at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose. Obviously I won’t have time to read all of these before the shortlist is revealed, so if you can recommend anything in particular please let me know.

Reading Resolutions for 2025

28 Comments

Happy New Year! As I do every January, I am listing below some reading resolutions for the year ahead. I prefer not to set numerical targets and goals or anything that restricts my reading choices too much, so these are just some loose plans and projects to help shape my year of reading.

Read Christie 2025
I will be taking part in the Read Christie challenge again and this year’s theme is Characters and Careers. I doubt I’ll join in every month as that’s just too much for me and I’m also starting to run out of new Christie books to read. The prompt for January is characters who are artists and I’ve already read all of the suggested titles so maybe I’ll just wait until February. Last year I managed eight out of the twelve monthly books and will be quite happy to achieve the same this year, but as I said above, I don’t want to worry about numbers.

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
I’ll also be taking part in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge (see my sign-up post here). This is never a very ‘challenging’ challenge for me, but I still like to join in and be part of the historical fiction community! In 2025 I would like to read more historical fiction in translation and/or set in countries I don’t often read about, particularly those in Africa, Asia or South America. Any suggestions and recommendations are welcome.

Classics Club list
I’ve been neglecting my Classics Club list recently, but there are only five books left on it now and I would like to read them soon so I can think about posting a new list. None of them are very long books, so I should be able to achieve that in the first few months of the year.

Re-reads
Every year I say I’m going to do some re-reading, but usually never actually get round to it. The list of books I would like to re-read is now very long and I’m determined to find time for at least a few of them in 2025. I’m tempted to join in with some of the Classics Club’s Jane Austen sync reads, which would all be re-reads for me!

Non-fiction
I never read much non-fiction, but read less than ever in 2024! Thanks to last year’s Nonfiction November and also the HWA Crown Awards longlist I’m not short of ideas and inspiration, so I’m hoping to read more in 2025. To get off to a good start, I’ve already picked up Britain’s Greatest Private Detective by Nell Darby, which is very interesting so far!

Reading the Walter Scott Prize
Reading the shortlists for the Walter Scott Prize is a personal project of mine. I’ve managed to read all of the books on the 2024 shortlist apart from one, The New Life by Tom Crewe, which I have on my TBR and am hoping to get to soon. There are still lots of books I haven’t read from the previous years’ lists, so I would like to catch up with some of them as well.

I’m sure I’ll be joining in with some of the reading events hosted by other bloggers throughout the year, but otherwise I just want 2025 to be a year of reading whatever I want to read, whenever I want to read it – and hopefully getting through more of the books that are already on my shelves or my Kindle rather than acquiring more. My ultimate resolution, as always, is to make every book I read a potential book of the year!

~

What about you? Do you have any reading resolutions or plans for 2025?

My favourite books of 2024

37 Comments

With only two days of 2024 remaining, I think it’s safe to post my books of the year list now. I’ve enjoyed putting this post together, going back over the last twelve months and picking out some favourites. I did something slightly different this year – I looked at the books I gave five stars to on Goodreads and chose six published in 2024 and six older ones. Let me know if you enjoyed any of these too.

~

BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 2024

A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (2024)

From my review: “After finishing Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder I was delighted to find that it’s the start of a new historical mystery series, which is great news as this first book is excellent. I hope we don’t have to wait too long for a second…When writing a novel set in the past, creating a sense of time and place is incredibly important and Sally Smith does that extremely well here.”

The King’s Messenger by Susanna Kearsley (2024)

From my review: “Susanna Kearsley’s author’s note is almost as interesting as the book itself…she describes the history of the Royal Messengers which led to the creation of her fictional hero Andrew Logan and explains which of the other people in the book were historical figures who really existed…Whether real or fictional, all of the characters in the novel come to life; I loved both Andrew and Sir David and although it took me longer to warm to Phoebe, she did win me over in the end!”

The Examiner by Janice Hallett (2024)

From my review: “the epistolary format she uses…is something you either love and connect with immediately or you don’t. If you didn’t enjoy her other books this one probably won’t change your mind. Personally, I find them unusual and imaginative – and very gripping, as the short length of the emails and chats makes it difficult to stop reading!”

The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden (2024)

From my review: “It has the feel of a Regency novel and there’s an obvious Jane Austen influence in both the writing style and the plot. The worldbuilding is strengthened by the inclusion of a map at the beginning and a list of characters giving their age, address and occupation. It was all so immersive that I really didn’t want to have to leave Wickenshire behind when I reached the end of the book!”

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (2024)

From my review: “I loved Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy, set in medieval Russia…Taking us to the battlefields of the First World War, this is very different in terms of setting, atmosphere and scope, but I’m pleased to say that it’s another great book.”

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal (2024)

From my review: “I was expecting good things from this one and I wasn’t disappointed at all…Although I correctly predicted some of the twists and turns of the plot, there were others I didn’t see coming at all. The relationship between Bonnie and Crawford is the driving force behind the novel and is what kept me turning the pages, anxious to see what plan Crawford would come up with next and whether Bonnie would ever escape his grip.”

OLDER BOOKS

The Reckoning by Sharon Penman (1991)

From my review: “A wonderful, thorough account of the final years of an independent Wales…A book of this size – around 600 pages – takes a long time to read when the story is so detailed and needs a lot of concentration, but I thought it was worth every minute…the story held my interest from beginning to end – and the ending, when it came, was heartbreaking, but that was to be expected!”

Silence by Shūsaku Endō (1966)

From my review: “Silence is both beautifully written and beautifully translated. From beginning to end, I was completely immersed in another time and place; there’s no jarringly modern language to pull the reader out of the story and everything feels authentic and real.”

Thomasina by Paul Gallico (1957)

From my review: “Although I was already familiar with the plot, I found that this novel had far more depth than the Disney version…I’m sure younger readers will enjoy the chapters written from Thomasina’s own perspective, where she gives amusing descriptions of life in the MacDhui household, but I never really felt that I was reading a ‘children’s book’ and I think there’s enough here for readers of all ages to enjoy.”

God is an Englishman by RF Delderfield (1970)

From my review: “Once I became absorbed in the story, the pages went by a lot more quickly than I’d expected and I was sorry to reach the end. I think some readers will probably enjoy this book more for the Swann family storylines and others for the insights into the building of a business empire. I found both interesting and felt that Delderfield got the balance between the two just about right. I will be continuing with the second book, Theirs Was the Kingdom!”

The Undetective by Bruce Graeme (1962)

From my review: “I found this an entertaining read from beginning to end…Graeme appears to have been very prolific, particularly during the 1930s and 40s, but this is a later novel from 1962. It’s a real gem and I highly recommend it to classic crime fans!”

Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark by Celia Fremlin (1970)

From my review: “Although the thirteen stories are all different and memorable in their own way, they could all be described as psychological suspense, taking us deep inside the characters’ minds. At the same time, they have perfectly crafted plots, often with a surprise twist in the final paragraph that changes the way we think about everything that came before.”

~

What are the best books you’ve read in 2024?

The Walter Scott Prize Shortlist 2024

24 Comments

The shortlist for the 2024 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced today! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors over the last few years and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).

From the longlist of twelve books which was revealed in February, I had previously read Cuddy by Benjamin Myers, Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie and My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor. Since the longlist announcement, I have also now read The Fraud by Zadie Smith and Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (not yet reviewed). But did any of the books I’ve read make the shortlist? Let’s find out…

The 2024 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist

The New Life by Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus)

London, 1894. John and Henry have a vision for a new way of life. But as the Oscar Wilde trial ignites public outcry, everything they long for could be under threat.

After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John has finally found a man who returns his feelings. Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that his new unconventional marriage will bring freedom. United by a shared vision, they begin work on a revolutionary book arguing for the legalisation of homosexuality.

Before it can be published however, Oscar Wilde is arrested and their daring book threatens to throw them, and all around them, into danger. How high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?

***

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury)

On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognisable to those who reside in the farm’s shadow. Down below is the barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops – Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, who live hard lives of backbreaking work, grinding poverty and devotion to faith.

When Dalton Changoor goes missing and Marlee’s safety is compromised, farmhand Hans is lured by the promise of a handsome stipend to move to the farm as watchman. But as the mystery of Dalton’s disappearance unfolds their lives become hellishly entwined, and the small community altered forever.

Hungry Ghosts is a mesmerising novel about violence, religion, family and class, rooted in the wild and pastoral landscape of 1940s colonial central Trinidad.

***

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror.

An Irish priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. He gathers a team to set up an Escape Line.

But Hauptmann’s net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmas, it’s too late to turn back.

Based on a true story, My Father’s House is a powerful thriller from a master of historical fiction. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances.

***

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas (Penguin Canada)

In 1859, deep in the forests of Canada, an elderly woman sits behind bars. She came to Dunmore via the Underground Railroad to escape enslavement, but an American bounty hunter tracked her down. Now she’s in jail for killing him, and the fragile peace of Dunmore, a town settled by people fleeing the American south, hangs by a thread.

Lensinda Martin, a smart young reporter, wants to gather the woman’s testimony before she can be condemned, but the old woman has no time for confessions. Instead she proposes a barter: a story for a story.

As the women swap stories – of family and first loves, of survival and freedom against all odds – Lensinda must face her past. And it seems the old woman may carry a secret that could shape Lensinda’s destiny.

***

Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus)

Marianne Clifford, teenage daughter of a peppery army colonel and his vain wife, falls helplessly and absolutely for eighteen-year-old Simon Hurst, whose cleverness and physical beauty suggest that he will go forward into a successful and monied future, helped on by doting parents. But fate intervenes. Simon’s plans are blown off course, he leaves for Paris and Marianne is forced to bury her dreams of a future together.

It is Marianne who tells this piercing story of first love, characterising herself as ignorant and unworthy, whilst her smart, ironic narration tellingly reveals so much more. Finding her way in 1960s Chelsea, and supported by her courageous Scottish friend, Petronella, she continues to seek the life she never stops craving. And in Paris, beneath his blithe exterior, Simon Hurst continues to nurse the secret which will alter everything.

***

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Canongate)

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.

Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.

~

So, of the six books I’ve read from the longlist, only two of them have appeared on the shortlist! I’m very surprised not to see Cuddy here as I thought it was the sort of book the judges would have gone for – but obviously not. Of the two that I’ve read, I enjoyed My Father’s House but didn’t like Hungry Ghosts very much, for reasons I’ll explain when I post my review. I’ve also just started reading The House of Doors, but it’s too early to say what I think of it yet.

What do you think? Have you read any of these or would you like to read them?

The winner will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose in June.