Nine of the 10 stories in The Islands, the deeply satisfying first collection of short fiction from University of Notre Dame professor Dionne Irving (Quint), center women who share a Jamaican background. The plurality inherent in the title cleverly points to Jamaica but also England...
Indian-born, English-raised Homer Todiwala undoubtedly improves British Pakistani Taymour Soomro’s evocative debut, in which father and son take turns navigating a relationship conflicted by power and clashing identities. At 16, Fahad is expected to learn to “take responsibility” for the family estate in rural Pakistan....
Irish cartoonist Emily McGovern’s sophomore graphic novel slyly examines screen-dependent twentysomethings stumbling through London life. At 25, Katie still lacks steady employment (and income). She rents a small room with gender-fluid, not-working artist Nas in has-been actor Jeremy’s townhouse. Katie and Nas are ex-best friends who...
At 43, Lia is dying, likely to leave behind her adoring husband Harry, precious 12-year-old daughter Iris, best friend Connie, (finally) no-longer-estranged mother, and career as a children’s book illustrator. Fighting for a future means that Lia must confront the consequences of her past. She grew...
*STARRED REVIEW Philip Pullman’s 1999 fairy-tale-adjacent, murine fable begets a delightful audio adaptation, gloriously dramatized by British actor Robert Glenister, who effortlessly showcases a dazzlingly vast cast. One moonlit night, a little boy in a torn uniform knocks on cobbler Bob and washerwoman Joan’s door announcing,...
JJ Bola opens with a shocking promise: “I quit my job; I am taking my life savings, $9,021, and when it runs out, I am going to kill myself.” Nigerian British actor Oseloka Obi commands immediate attention in his debut narration in a solo adult...
Liza Ferneyhough makes her delightfully clever author/illustrator debut with Nana, Nenek & Nina. The picture book opens with a double-page spread introducing a three-person family, with the Golden Gate Bridge visible through their window. Photos hang on either side of the window, two of which...
*STARRED REVIEW Meet Phyllis Fischer – she prefers Phyl – the latest protagonist of British auteur Tessa Hadley, who so brilliantly writes of familial relationships often facing significant change, possibly collapse. English actor Abigail Thaw, who voiced Hadley’s Late in the Day (2019), delivers another resounding performance;...
Monica Ali: 'I need to write. No Matter What' Monica Ali’s debut novel, Brick Lane, earned a Man Booker shortlist nod and recognition for Ali as one of Granta's 2003 "Best Young British Novelists." Born to a Bangladeshi father and British mother, Ali was raised in England,...
Even at 400-plus pages, by book's end, readers will miss the Ghorami and Sangster clans of Monica Ali's addictively readable, shrewdly insightful, subversively humorous novel Love Marriage. Yasmin Ghorami and Joe Sangster are in love, engaged to be married in the months ahead. They're both physicians,...
*STARRED REVIEW From just the cover, the color red immediately suggests a strangers-to-not narrative; that floating heart in the title underscores what’s to come. But knowing what happens doesn’t diminish in any way Sophie Burrows’ poignant, timely, mostly wordless graphic debut. Set in London, where Burrows also...
*STARRED REVIEW Charlotte McConaghy returns for another spectacular woman-and-nature thriller, finding a pitch-perfect accomplice in prolific Saskia Maarleveld. After chasing birds from the water in Migrations, McConaghy plants in the Scottish Highlands where the reintroduction of wolves – utterly disappeared by hunters since the late 1800s –...
An octogenarian shoplifter doesn’t quite seem like a likely hero, but British actor Siobhan Waring will certainly make you believe otherwise. Kleptomaniacal Irish matriarch Millie is caught yet again at the village shop and this time her son Kevin (energetically embodied by Irish-born Gary Furlong)...
Lauren Groff has built a significant career crafting novels and stories featuring sharp observations by and about modern women. In a surprising feat of time travel, the two-time National Book Award finalist (for Fates and Furies and Florida) leaps back to 12th-century England in Matrix and fictionalizes the life...
Award-winning British children's author/illustrator Lizzy Stewart makes an impressive adult graphic debut with interlinked short episodes observing, analyzing and celebrating women's friendships. The nine chapters in It's Not What You Thought It Would Be could each stand alone, but Stewart cleverly relies on shades of orange to...
China Room, the outstanding third novel by Sunjeev Sahota, ends with a black-and-white image of an older woman holding a crying infant. That photo – displayed in a dining room in China Room – is the dual narrative's pivotal connector: a "great-grandmother ...
Nothing is quite what it seems – of course – in prodigious Helen Oyeyemi’s latest. The “starry-eyed young couple,” Otto and Xavier Shin, have committed to sharing the same last name without marrying. They’re embarking on a “non-honeymoon honeymoon” on a train trip gifted by...
Nikita Lalwani's alternating narrators in her remarkable third novel, You People, seemingly have little in common beyond a shared place of employment: a London pizzeria with predominantly undocumented staff. Nia, a 19-year-old Welsh transplant escaping an abusive home life, was asked to leave Oxford University, where...
British actor Phil Davis makes his solo narrating debut, his voice controlled and resonant, softened just slightly for the single female among Swift’s elusive trio. Here We Are, the title proclaims, and yet – well, the threesome is more fleeting illusion than solid presence. In 1959...
At 25-plus hours, we’re talking serious commitment – and enthusiastic accomplishment – for veteran narrator Ralph Lister, whose energetic performance never, ever lags. That said, clear distinctions between characters aren’t always reliable – the women, especially, sound too affectedly similar, the musical clips between sections...
