The Artist by Lucy Steeds

Review by

The Artist

A captivating quest for light and freedom

Creating a literary buzz upon publication in 2025, The Artist by Lucy Steeds dazzles amongst recent debuts. A luminous and evocative tale set in 1920s Provence, it tells the story of Joseph, an English journalist tasked with interviewing the famous, reclusive painter, Edouard Tartuffe. Joseph’s time staying with the volatile artist and his enigmatic niece, Ettie, will come to redefine all their lives in a fabulously immersive novel that manages to combine art, history, intrigue and romance, along with a stirring cameo from Peggy Guggenheim.

Read full Review

The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

Review by

The Vet’s Daughter

Rising above it

We’re big fans of the Virago Modern Classics collection, the iconic green-spined books denoting wonderful women writers saved for posterity (and often from neglect). A personal favourite on this inspiring list is the 1959 gem, The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns, an eccentric tale tinged with melancholy and magic. Set in a rather gloomy Edwardian South London, it tells the story of a naive young woman named Alice, her confined girlhood, strange otherworldly gifts, and relationship with a father who must surely rank as one of the most monstrous parents in all literature.

Read full Review

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Review by

Nervous Conditions

Instant African classic

Rare is the book that becomes an instant classic but that was the case for Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga when it was published in 1988. Set in 1960s and 70s in what was then Rhodesia, it’s the coming-of-age story of Tambu, a gifted girl from a dirt-poor farming family who defies her gender and class to be allowed an education. Nervous Conditions was the first book published in English written by a black Zimbabwean woman and its feminist outlook, inspired by Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, revolutionary in itself. A fenomenal portrayal of misogyny, colliding cultures, colonialisation and class.

Read full Review

Arborescence by Rhett Davis

Review by

Arborescence

A curious rewilding

Bren and Caelyn are a twenty-something Australian couple, whose lives are somewhat adrift; Bren employed in a nebulous role in the content industry, Caelyn flitting between jobs, dissatisfied and searching for purpose. A random viewing of a surreal, so-called ‘tree cult’ video pricks her curiosity and the couple embark on an investigative journey into the startling rise of environmentalist groups whose members believe that if they stand still for long enough, they will take root and become trees. In the uniquely compelling Arborescence by Rhett Davis we watch as old-school tree-hugging morphs into a practice whose logic and finality becomes strangely infectious.

Read full Review

A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland

Review by

A Room Above a Shop

Love in a cold climate

An Observer Best Debut Novel of 2025 and Hay Festival Book of the Year, A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland is a poignant and beautiful tale of secret love. Set in a Welsh valley town in the late 1980’s, against a backdrop of industrial decline and the emerging AIDS crisis, it tells the story of two unhappily closeted gay men, M and B (symbolically shielded by the use of only their initials). Drawn to each other one fateful evening, they begin a tentative relationship in an insular, small-town community which would shun and shame them if the truth were revealed.

Read full Review

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda

Review by

Reservoir Bitches

A graveyard full of pink crosses

Fierce, street smart, and laced with dark humour, Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda is a literary adrenaline shot; thirteen blistering and brilliant tales of contemporary Mexican womanhood, from an activist and debut writer whose theme here is women who live with violence. With a cast of characters spanning the social scale (aging seamstress ‘spinsters’ traumatised by the degradation of their once nice neighbourhood, an impoverished young woman contemplating a lonely abortion, a wealthy narco heiress running her father’s empire), De la Cerda shows us the lengths these women will go to to survive.

Read full Review

Vaim by Jon Fosse

Review by

Vaim

A Three Sentence Miracle

One sentence books scares me. Vaim by Jon Fosse, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2024, is one of those, although to be fair, it is more like a three-sentence book, one sentence for each of its three parts. How wrong I was. In stream-of-consciousness prose Fosse hypnotises his reader with the story of invisible, middle-aged Jatgeir, his beloved wooden boat and the enigmatic Eline amongst the deep fjords of Norway’s west coast. It has an almost otherworldly feel to it this novel and a timeless, disorientating quality which is part of its magic. Ideally, this short novel should be read in one sitting. I was reading it while juggling Christmas dinners and dishwasher emptying, not the ideal context. Find yourself a quiet corner on a rainy Sunday, immerse yourself and be enthralled.

Read full Review

Nature Tales for Winter Night by Nancy Campbell

Review by

Nature Tales for Winter Nights

A lovely seasonal companion

Nature Tales for Winter Nights by Nancy Campbell is a curiously mistitled book. To the casual browser, at first glance it appears to be a short story collection, when in actuality, it’s a wintry-themed literary pick’n’mix. Almost fifty different pieces, ranging through time and genre; a lucky dip could bless the reader with a letter from Vincent Van Gogh, a passage from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, or maybe an extract from the meteorological records of an Arctic explorer. Eclectic and evocative, it makes a lovely companion for these long, dark days of the year.

Read full Review

The Wax Child by Olga Ravn

Review by

The Wax Child

Many women, many witches

The wax child entered this world in the early 1600’s and was christened on the Danish island of Funen. We know this because it tells us so; a beeswax doll with human hair and fingernail parings, it looks like a child, longs to be a child but will never be. Now that its mistress is dead and gone, it lies face up beneath the soil, dreaming and remembering. It has stories to tell us, of witchcraft and persecution, female solidarity and betrayal. Based on historical witch trials, The Wax Child by Olga Ravn is an eerie, unsettling and oddly beautiful novel.

Read full Review

News by

Books for Christmas 2025

Don’t you just love it when someone gives you a thoughtful book as a present? Perhaps a book that you have heard about but never got around to buying or an author you’ve never read before who turns out to be your new favourite?  We’ve been sifting through new releases and chosen our favourites reads from 2025 – fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. It’s been a good year for unusual stories and here they are, the books that give us a warm fuzzy feeling when we see them on our bookshelves.  Take your pick and don’t forget to buy some for yourself!

Happy reading and Merry Christmas from Kirstin and Julie

Read more