Reviews 

Book of the year, so worth a re-read. Beautifully written, with sentences that bounce into quasi-verse and others that begin with one...

Book of the year for me, so far. Never heard of the author, got it out from the library as no.1015 above. Set on an island somewhere off...

I don’t normally write up a book I haven’t finished, but I will make an exception here. I have read it before (on holiday in Majorca...

I found this very slight. An Irish girl, struggling to find work in her hometown, goes to New York at the instigation of her local...

This is a wonderful book. Passion in the title has the ambiguity of sexual and religious passion. Judith Hearne, a lonely spinster in...

This is a wonderful book, that has somehow sat unread on the bookshelf for years, maybe since my dad died? Diarmuid Devine is a middle...

I am inclined to an aversion for celebrity authors, but this is extremely good, and I’ll read his others. The plot begins with a young...

Another fast paced thriller in the Katie Maguire series. These are maybe a bit repetitive, but they really are fast paced, often gruesome...

Another very good story. The technique, which works well, is to blend three or four bits of criminality into the plot – in this case a...

This guy is very good. The books are full of very graphic violence, but are extremely well plotted and the central figure Kate Maguire is...

Never heard of the author, just grabbed this from the library to read over the bank holiday week-end. And it is really good, probably one...

I have read I think all Tana French’s books but this is the best. I find her prose style can get a bit Jamesian and convoluted but not in...

Triggered no doubt by no 746, I read these for probably the 3rd time in my life and enjoyed them more than previously. But enjoyed may...

Bought another one, as I finished 738 before being ready to sleep. This one is actually even better – about a 15 year old girl in Cork...

Heard this on Radio 4 a few weeks ago and enjoyed it enough to read. It is very good; a coming of age novel about an 18 year old boy who...

This is a case of ‘make a really poor TV adaptation of a book (Dublin Murders BBC 1)’ and drive a reader back to the original book. This...

Good, but very difficult read (assumed it had taken 2 weeks but seems to be only one). A dramatic monologue by the nameless narrator, a...

I had no idea this guys wrote books, as well as being a chat show host. I wouldn’t say this was very well written, but the plot was...

Enjoyed 658, so thought I would try another. This was good and well written again, but I found the time shifts annoying and detracted...

Not sure that I have ever read any Edna O’Brien before, if so a long time ago. Although set in rural, agricultural Ireland in (I am...