Strange Buildings by Uketsu Review

Unusual deaths, child murderers, a bizarre cult for very specific couples, and, of course, lots and lots of weird floor plans of Strange Buildings - it can only be another of Uketsu’s unique brand of murder mystery stories.

Driving Short Distances by Joff Winterhart Review

Sam is 27 years old and, having dropped out of university multiple times and suffered a breakdown, he’s moved back in with his mum. While trying to find his feet again, he’s offered a job by his dad’s cousin, Keith Nutt. Without any other prospects and deciding to temporarily put aside his artistic dreams and focus on a real job, he becomes Keith’s apprentice - to whatever Keith does all day. Which seems to be mainly driving short distances visiting local businesses.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan Review

Set in 1970s England, Serena is a young Cambridge-educated mathematician recruited into MI5 and finds herself working as part of Operation Sweet Tooth. The op is to bankroll writers whose politics mirror those of the state - West/Capitalism good, East/Communism bad - in the hope that the fiction they produce will sway the minds of the populace. And then Serena falls for her writer target, Tom. Dawww! Love in a cold (war) climate indeed.

Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector Review

I’ve heard of Clarice Lispector, the arty farty Brazilian author with the cool name, for some time now and a year or two ago I tried her book The Hour of the Star, and just couldn’t get on with it. Then I found out it was her final book and I thought I’d give her another chance - maybe Hour was bad because it was written at the end of her life when her artistic powers might’ve been diminished, and not be representative of her best work?

The Hotel by Daisy Johnson Review

Haunted hotel gonna haunt!

That’s basically the premise and the entirety of Daisy Johnson’s The Hotel. It looks like a short story collection - 14 stories (all impressively almost exactly the same length each) about this creepy hotel, some of which loosely tie into one another, to create a novel(ish).