2022 Year In Review: Award Winners
Discover the year’s best books and award winners for 2021, focusing on the major literary and crime writing awards.
Book Reviews
Dark Deeds Down Under by Craig Sisterson
A short review for a book of short stories! Do borrow this book of short stories from current Australian and New Zealand crime authors. I…
The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
As we approach the end of another year (for those of us still alive), we would like to honour some important milestones of the literature…
The Great Darkness (Nighthawk #1) by Jim Kelly
A referral during our monthly Mystery & Crime Reading Group led me to discover this series of three crime novels set in Cambridge UK at…
The Rising Tide (Vera Stanhope #10) by Ann Cleeves
This is the tenth Vera Stanhope book and does not disappoint. The discovery of a man’s hanged body on Holy Island takes Vera and her…
A Catalogue of Catastrophe (Chronicles of St. Mary’s #13) by Jodi Taylor
Previous reviews of this British author’s Chronicles of St Mary’s series have recommended her works to those readers who adore the mayhem of St Trinians,…
The Night Ship by Jess Kidd
The Night Ship tells two stories, both from the perspective of a motherless child, both bound to the inhospitable seas and islands off the western…
Digging Up Dirt (Poppy McGowan #1) by Pamela Hart
This is a fun murder-mystery, set in the leafy Sydney suburb of Annandale. Poppy McGowan is a researcher for an ABC TV kids’ programme. In…
Long Shadows (Amos Decker #7) By David Baldacci
The sole protagonist, Amos Decker, must be growing on the author, as this novel is the seventh in the Decker series. Most of the author’s…
All The Broken Places by John Boyne
When does guilt by association end? In this heart-wrenching sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, 91 year old Gretel Fernsby has been running…
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
This was a historical novel I could not put down. The first chapter presents the reader with a totally unexpected situation. Lucrezia de’ Medici, daughter…
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
Britt-Marie Was Here, in classic Fredrik Backman fashion, is a novel ultimately about community and coming into oneself. Backman has always written incredibly tender and…