Tag: Woman
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“May” by Naomi Kruger
Naomi Kruger’s beautifully written debut novel May is a story about how we remember the past, what we choose to hold on to and what must be let go. It centres around May, an elderly women living with dementia in a residential care facility. The novel is structured around a single day in May’s life. May’s own…
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“The Boiling Point for Jam” by Lynda Tavakoli
The Boiling Point for Jam is Northern Ireland-based poet, Lynda Tavakoli’s debut collection. It covers a wide range of themes including war, personal loss, ageing, the natural world and Tavakoli’s connection to both Fermanagh and Tehran. The poems are both assured and characterised by a lightness of touch which often had me re-reading lines a second…
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“Surviving Grace” by Trish Vradenburg
The Washington Star review printed on the back of my copy of Surviving Grace calls this play, “a two-hour Seinfeld,” and this assessment seems particularly apt. The play is sharp, funny, fast-paced and in places a little absurd. It centres around Kate Griswald, a thirty something TV producer and her sixty five year old mother…
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“Turn of Mind” by Alice LaPlante
Turn of Mind was the first novel to win the Wellcome Book Prize, back in 2011. It was also one of the first of a number of novels and stories which used the conceit of Dementia as a vehicle for investigating a murder within a crime fiction context. As such, it’s a really interesting example of…
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“The Granny Project” by Anne Fine
The Granny Project is a short YA novel written by Carnegie Medal winning writer Anne Fine and first published in 1983. It later found a place on the school curriculum and was adapted into a popular play. It opens with the mother and father of the family announcing the intention to put the children’s beloved grandmother…
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“The Summer of Lily and Esme” by John Quinn
It’s the summer between Primary and Secondary School and everything’s changing for Alan. His parents have moved the family out of Dublin and bought an old house in a village in the country. At first Alan thinks he’ll be isolated and lonely with no one around to play with. However, within days of the move…
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“Memory” by Margaret Mahy
I’m going to be really honest. It took me longer than usual to get into Carnegie Medal winning writer, Margaret Mahy’s Memory. The novel opens with a quite lengthy, and somewhat confusing section which introduces us to the main protagonist, Jonny Dart. He’s drunk and angry and trying to get to the bottom of an incident…
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“Tamar” by Mal Peet
Guardian Prize- winning author, Mal Peet won the Carnegie Medal for Tamar and it’s pretty easy to see why. His YA novel is an epic read, spanning fifty years of history and three generations of a complicated family. It’s a big book but I read it in less than twenty four hours because I simply couldn’t put…
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“Toffee” by Sarah Crossan
In this stunning verse novel from Carnegie Medal winning YA author Sarah Crossan we meet Alison, a young woman on the run from a difficult situation at home. She ends up in a bleak seaside town. Alone, and with nowhere else to sleep, she hides out in the shed of an abandoned house. It soon…
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“Malcolm Orange Disappears” by Jan Carson
Summarising a book you’ve written yourself is a difficult and quite disconcerting thing to do. Malcolm Orange Disappears was my first published novel and, whilst I’m still quite fond of it and certain characters who appear within its pages, six books later, I can definitely see where it could be improved. The story focuses upon eleven year…