Letters to Amelia | Review

Lindsay Zier-Vogel’s ‘Letters to Amelia’ is perhaps my most anticipated novel of the year. A beautiful exploration of the shifting identity of its protagonist, Grace Porter, as she navigates both the prospect of motherhood and a work project focussing on the secret letters of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, Letters to Amelia is full of gorgeous…

is, thinks Pearl | Review

To slip into Pearl’s mind is to slip into a viewpoint that finds beauty and potential beneath tattiness and grime. Taking us around her town over the course of a day (and, one senses, a lifetime), Pearl finds joy in visiting a Christmas shop in June, a pink flamingo pool float, and the soft and…

Menagerie | Review

I spent the last month of 2020 with a particular word rattling around my head which, for once, wasn’t ‘unprecedented’. The word in question? ‘Mouthmouth’. This bilabial wonder originates in Cheryl Pearson’s Menagerie, in the poem ‘Hedgehog’, as the prickly anthropomorphic speaker declares itself to be ‘[a]ll mouthmouth’. It was quite possibly the best word…

Goose Fair Night | Review

I gravitated towards Kathy Pimlott’s poetry pamplet Goose Fair Night at the familiar sight of the glittering Ferris wheel and fair tents on its cover. As someone who has lived in Nottingham for nearly five years now, the allusion to the annual Goose Fair at the Forest Recreation Ground immediately grabbed my attention. I was…

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Review

I’ll be honest: I’ve never really got on with the work of the Brontë sisters. But Anne Brontë’s often overlooked novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall completely captured my heart. I’ve never really settled into reading the Brontë sisters’ books before. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was ruined for me when I read Jean Rhys’ exceptional…