Category Books
The First Mistake by Sandie Jones
Well, isn’t life funny? Right when I decided I’m going to swear-off thrillers after I’m done with my current TBRs, Sandie Jones’s latest, which was on top of that pile, managed to knock socks right off my feet! Going in, I didn’t even have high expectations for The First Mistake. I read Jones’s much raved […]
The Unpassing by Chia-Chia Lin
Although it has been almost a month since I read Chia-Chia Lin’s The Unpassing, not a single day has passed by when I didn’t think about it. It’s a mesmerizing novel that in many ways reminds me of Han Kang’s The White Book. So I wholeheartedly agree with Ruth Lefaive from The Rumpus. “Attempting to […]
A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena
I think I’m going to have to take a break from contemporary domestic thrillers as soon as I finish reading the ones that are already in my TBR stacks. Lately, they all read the same to me. With familiar plots and twists, they don’t wow me anymore like they once did, and I had been […]
Say Say Say by Lila Savage
Lila Savage’s unflinchingly visceral debut novel Say Say Say revolves around Ella, a young woman on the cusp of 30. Ella is an aspiring artist who had dropped out of graduate school a few years back to make a living. While searching for a job, Ella had stumbled upon the career of care-giving. And the […]
Maigret and the Saturday Caller by Georges Simenon
Lately, I have been having marvelous luck with my Crime Classic picks! I loved Michael Gilbert’s Death in Captivity, which I read a couple of weeks back. Set in a POW camp during WWII, it is one of the most unusual whodunits I’ve read. And now with Maigret and the Saturday Caller, I have a new […]
Cari Mora by Thomas Harris
In Cari Mora, Thomas Harris’s first novel in thirteen years, two rival gangs have been after drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s gold stash for a while. With cartel gold worth of twenty-five million dollars at stake, the stage is all set for a murderous race between sadist Hans-Peter Schneider’s crew and Latino desperadoes to beat each […]
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
This time around, the Women’s Prize for Fiction judges surprised readers by advancing both Circe and The Silence of the Girls into the shortlist. This decision disappointed many Women’s Prize for Fiction enthusiasts who didn’t expect to see two Greek mythology retellings among the final six novels. However, while I’m at peace with both their […]
The Night Before by Wendy Walker
Wendy Walker’s Emma in the Night was one of my favorite thriller-reads last year. I read thrillers to keep things light, as there’s usually no takeaway for me when I read them, but Emma in the Night was an exception. It brilliantly explored the effect narcissist parents can have on their offspring, and gave me […]
Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert
Michael Gilbert’s Death in Captivity is the twelveth British Library Crime Classic I read, and let me tell you it’s not their usual murder mystery offering. Set in 1943 after the Sicilian Campaign when Allies had started gaining momentum in the war-front, this vintage crime novel takes place in Campo 127, a prisoner-of-war camp in […]
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
Willa Drake has always been a passive participant in her own life – she has let others call shots for her, and watch her life pass her by. But now at the age of 61, Willa has a chance to change all that – when Willa receives a call from a total stranger giving her […]
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
My Sister, the Serial Killer, set in Lagos, Nigeria, is one of the most compelling and fast-paced reads among the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted novels in 2019. I managed to devour it in a single setting, and it has a simple premise. Ayoola, Korede’s little sister, is everything Korede is not. She is a […]
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
So I have decided that I’m going to try and read all the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted books before the winner announcement on 5 June. Even though the Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the awards I follow, I usually take my sweet time reading the shortlist. But this year, since the only […]
They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall
Miriam Macy, the protagonist of They All Fall Down, has been down on her luck lately – her husband has left her for another woman and Morgan, Miriam’s teenage daughter, seems to love her new stepmom more. So Miriam is thrilled to hear that she has been selected to be part of a new reality […]
The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih
I’ve been fond of reading for as long as I can remember, but I only started reading translated fiction roughly a decade ago. Not a lot of books get translated to Sinhala, my native tongue, so I wasn’t able to access most of the translated works until I improved my English reading fluency. And now, […]
Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert
I really do appreciate British Library for taking the pains to rediscover and reprint some of the forgotten crime classics of the golden age! Before I started following this series, Dame Agatha and Georges Simenon were the only crime classics writers on my radar. While I like to believe I would have come across great […]
