Uhtred, a Saxon warrior raised by Danes and the right-hand man of King Alfred the Great, returns home to Northum­bria to settle old scores. Settle those scores he eventually does, but not before he is betrayed by a man he trusts and sold into slavery.

Cornwell is best known for his long-running series about Richard Sharpe, an officer promoted from the ranks in the Napoleonic Wars, and for his battle scenes. Here he proves that he can write about 9th century swordsmen as well as he can write about …continue.

George Cautley, a young gentleman of in­dif­fer­ent background, comes to London in 1770 and attempts to enter society, hoping to make his way as a painter. He becomes obsessed with Lady Beauclair, who sits for her portrait and spins him a tale of a castrato opera singer, who fifty years earlier fled Italy for London.

Lady Beauclair is not what she seems. Indeed, nothing is what it seems in this novel. Everything is a mask. Or a masquerade. Arch whispers. Veiled glances. Layers of face paint hiding blemishes. New portraits daubed on top of old. Deception. Intrigue.

A collection of short stories and a play, all char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly dark. Tales of fucked-up lives, tales of people with shitty pasts and no futures, tales of revenge.

Lehane writes bril­liant­ly. His spare de­scrip­tion, his dialogue brings the characters to life on the page.

The play, "Coronado", is adapted from an earlier short story, "Until Gwen" — also part of this collection. The repetition does not feel redundant. The play fleshes out the short story, telling it in a different manner.

Rec­om­mend­ed, but depressing.

Rae Newborn has struggled with depression for decades. The death a year ago of her second husband and their young daughter drove her to attempt suicide. Now she's moved to Folly, a small island in the San Juans that she inherited from Desmond Newborn, her grand­fa­ther's brother.

Desmond went off to the First World War and came back broken by shell shock. He bought Folly in the 1920s and built a house with his own hands, then dis­ap­peared after the house burned down.

All alone on Folly, Rae starts …continue.

Roddy Doyle has visited Paula Spencer twice before. First in The Family, a BBC TV serial; then in The Woman Who Walked into Doors. Ten years on from the last book, Paula is a recovering alcoholic who only recently crawled out of the bottle. The boom years of the Celtic Tiger have passed her by: Paula continues to clean Dublin offices and houses for a living. Her youngest two children are still at home. Jack is fine but Leanne is heading towards alcoholism herself. Her other son, John Paul, is estranged and …continue.

The first book in a trilogy that tells the fictional history of the Templars.

The Order of the Rebirth in Sion is a secret society whose roots go back to Jerusalem before the time of Christ, whose members are drawn from French noble families. When the Pope starts the First Crusade to seize Jerusalem back from the Muslims, a handful of the Order tag along in the hopes of dis­cov­er­ing their order's secrets in the long-lost Temple of Solomon. Under the guise of warrior-monks protecting …continue.

Walt the Wonder Boy can walk on air. Really. He was a nine-year-old orphan pulled off the streets of 1920s St. Louis by Master Yehudi and taught in a long, grueling process to levitate and walk through the air. Walt becomes a huge hit and he and Master Yehudi travel around America, pulling in the crowds. It can't last of course and Walt loses his ability once puberty strikes. Master Yehudi dies and Walt settles into a second career as a small-time crook and club owner in 1930s Chicago. He goes …continue.

Tom Janeway lives in Seattle with his wife Beth and their four-year-old son, Finn. Tom is a middle-aged Englishman who teaches writing at the University of Wash­ing­ton; Beth, somewhat younger, is an editor at GetAShack.com. It's 1999 and the DotCom boom is raging. Chick is an illegal immigrant from China, with a raging en­tre­pre­neur­ial streak, who ends up wandering in and out of Tom's life.

Tom is perceptive enough to be an occasional com­men­ta­tor on NPR's All Things Considered, yet oblivious to the problems in his marriage, and he's flab­ber­gast­ed when Beth leaves …continue.

Mary-Mathilda has been the mistress of Bellfeels, a plantation owner in Bimshire (a lightly fic­tion­al­ized Barbados), since her early teens. One night, she calls the police to confess a crime. Sargeant, who has silently loved her since they were children, takes her Statement over the course of a very long, discursive night. A night in which many ugly secrets bubble to the surface. Secrets about Mary-Mathilda's past, secrets about the English elite who ruled pre-War Bimshire, secrets about the plantation: secrets that Sargeant doesn't really want to hear.

An odd, meandering novel that …continue.

This is a very strange novel, which I abandoned half way through. The last book that I abandoned was simply wretched in every way, but this one is beau­ti­ful­ly written.

Giraffe is also utterly, mad­den­ing­ly pointless. It tells the (apparently) true story of the slaughter of a large herd of captive giraffes at a Czecho­slo­va­kian zoo in 1973. The main narrator is a he­mo­dy­nam­i­cist escorting a newly captured herd of giraffes as they are trans­port­ed by barge from Hamburg to the Czech zoo. He is a depressed-sounding young man with little liking for the Communist regime, …continue.