‘In the Company of the Courtesan’ by Sarah Dunant

I first came across this author when a friend gave me her first novel, ‘Birth of Venus’, for Christmas. Straight away I loved her style of writing, but in that case found the story a little too tragic. Thankfully, ‘Courtesan’ has none of the same aching sense of sadness and wasted lives, [...]

‘Death of a Monk’ by Alon Hilu

Finding this book at all was something of a happy accident, since I’d never even heard of the author, let alone the title. This isn’t really surprising as Hilu is an Israeli writer and Death of a Monk was translated from Hebrew by an American scholar. Browsing the shelves of an Aladdin’s cave [...]

Review of Jim Grimsley’s ‘Boulevard’

I’m just popping in to say that my latest review, of Jim Grimsley’s New Orleans-set novel ‘Boulevard’, is available in Issue 16 of Forbidden Fruit Magazine.
“Grimsley’s writing is amazing. In any other context this would be called literature; the fact that he’s writing about sleaze doesn’t detract from the elegance and sheer cleverness of his [...]