I picked up this book because I’d recently visited the Scottish Highlands, and I was in the mood for a classic murder mystery set in that landscape. And indeed, some…
Murder of a Lady: A Scottish Mystery by Anthony Wynne (Review)
1930s Literature: Reading Books from (& about) the Age of Anxiety
There’s something about the 1930s that keeps pulling me back as a reader, in a way that’s almost subconscious. It’s a dynamic decade: suspended between wars, thick with anxiety, experimentation,…
A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell
This is a more obscure Orwell read, one that he himself and critics found lacking, but I really enjoyed this. Dorothy is daughter of a curmudgeonly Anglican rector, and the…
After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
This is a bleak novel about precarious survival in big cities, perfect for this time of year. Despite the bleakness, the beautiful prose of Rhys carries you through this narrative…
Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
A forgotten 1934 novel that feels frighteningly relevant today and that I almost couldn’t believe was actually written in 1934 by an Englishwoman. Sally Carson died young in 1941, never…