Book Reviews

Birdcage Walk
by Helen Dunmore
pub Cornerstone £8.99
Bristol in the 1790s is a place of booming property development and feverish speculation, but also increasing instability as radical republicanism begins to spread from revolutionary France. Against her idealistic family’s wishes, Lizzie marries John Diner Tredevant, an enigmatic widower with grand plans for a sweeping terrace above the two-hundred foot drop of the Gorge. As the building works spiral out of control and Lizzie becomes more and more uncertain about the unknown fate of Diner’s first wife, he seeks a tighter rein on her independent spirit as well as on her daily life, and she starts to become more and more afraid of him…
 The novel is written with a haunting clarity and pared down beauty, attributed in Dunmore’s afterword to the fact that she wrote the book whilst seriously but unknowingly ill – ‘a novel written … under such a growing shadow cannot help being full of sharper light, rather as a landscape becomes brilliantly distinct in the last sunlight before a storm.’ It did in fact turned out to be the last sunlight, her last novel, as Helen Dunmore sadly died on the 5th of June, aged 64. A great loss to modern literature.

Madame Zero
by Sarah Hall
pub Faber £12.99
A woman turns into a fox, a boy cares for a pregnant woman with great tenderness in a post-apocalyptic world where the wind never stops blowing, a woman’s appetites change in ways relished by her husband – until he finds out why, in a future hospital abortion is forbidden and medics have to step around the rules to help a dying woman.
Familiarity tips into the strange and unsettling, desires and truths and the darkness at the heart of ourselves and aspects of modern life are confronted and illuminated as each story opens a window into a perfectly realised world.
Every story demonstrates Hall’s mastery of the form, and reinforces her position as one of the most exciting and accomplished authors working today, and one of my all-time favourites.

Darcy Dolphin is a Little Bit Magic
by Sam Watkins
pub Egmont £5.99
Sam Watkins is the author of the popular and amusing Creature Teacher books published by OUP. She has now turned her hand to a series aimed at slightly younger children and 6-8 year olds are enjoying these gently amusing books written in diary form by a young dolphin. School stories with a fishy twist. Darcy gets her books from Seawaterstones – you get the picture!

Wolf Hollow
by Lauren Wolk
pub Corgi £6.99
A small farming community in Pennsylvania in 1943 is the location for this absorbing coming-of-age drama which has echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird in its perceptive treatment of small town life and potential injustices observed by an articulate young narrator. Two new arrivals in the neighbourhood create ripples – a damaged tramp-like veteran, Toby, an enigmatic figure who may not be as gentle and harmless as 12-year-old Annabelle thinks he is. and an unnerving teenage bully, Betty, who exudes menace towards Annabelle but elicits sympathy from the rest of the neighbourhood. When Betty goes missing it is Toby who is a suspect. Lyrical, compelling and pitch perfect, this is an absolutely fantastic book for serious readers of age 11 and over
“It is lazy and unsubtle to praise a good children’s book by saying it’s good enough for adults, but… Wolf Hollow is.” The Guardian.