This book is a beautifully crafted, bright and deep novel which addresses some really heavy subjects: toxic masculinity, fear, abuse, protection and growing up. And yet, it manages to deliver its lessons on the sly, distracting the reader with perilous plot and beautiful imagery until you hit the sucker-punch ending.
The Whitby Witches is a book about courage, history and magic. Two orphans are suddenly re-routed to Whitby to stay with Miss Boston - a spritely 90-something year old who walks up the famous 199 steps every day to keep her mind and body active. She needs this sharpness in spades as her friends start to die mysteriously, and the town that she knows and loves starts to crumble under a dark force.
Ghost Wall is a highly acclaimed, multiple prize-winning novel that’s been described as a ‘short, sharp shock that closes around you like a vice as you read it’. It’s a story about a modern family reliving the Iron Age; about family, about abusive situations, about friendship. But for me, it fell far short of the dazzling, ‘burnished gem’ of a book that I’d been promised.
In ‘Convenience Store Woman’, we follow this unusual protagonist as she battles through what society expects from her, and fights to secure her place at her beloved store when faced with someone who could rip it all apart.
(no spoilers) ‘My sister, the serial killer’ is a story about ‘family’ - and a fucked up one at that. It speaks strongly to the age-old sibling relationship where you simultaneously hate their guts while also screaming: “Leave her alone, asswipe! I’m the only one who can kick my sister!” Korede and Ayoola are two … Continue reading Book review: ‘My sister, the serial killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The pig (part of the Stranger Stories series) The moment she opened the front door, the shadowy figure grabbed at her. He rushed forward so quickly that he could have caught her heart in his hands as it leapt up her throat and out her mouth. But as she felt his hands on her, and smelled his cologne, she swallowed the feeling of fear. She recognised him.
