The Woman Behind The Door by Roddy Doyle:

I lost touch with Roddy Doyle’s books after The Guts ten years ago.  I have to say this is a massive return to form, or maybe all the books I have missed in the last decade have been up to this standard.  Either way, Doyle has returned to Paula Spencer - the protagonist of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and the eponymous sequel.  

In this book, Paula is in her late sixties. She has a great group of friends, a dull (but dependable and decent) man in her life and a bunch of children - some of whom are distant, one (Nicola) considers herself damaged by Paula’s marriage.  Against the backdrop of COVID, cost of living and  modern day Dublin; things come to a head.  

It’s a powerful cocktail and those who love Doyle’s dialogue driven style can see it here.  He’s always in control of using events in a bigger story about coming to terms with your own child, let alone your past.  And although readers may be familiar with what happened to Paula in the previous two novels, it stands alone as a funny, brutal, warm, touching read.  

In this book, Paula reads Marian Keyes’ novel The Break.  Perhaps he’s impishly nodding at a universe where both novelist and novel are fictional and real at the same time.  Either way, this puts Doyle alongside Keyes and Enright at the top table of Irish literature. 

It’s published by Random House on 12th September and I thank them for a preview copy.  #thewomenbehindthedoor

 Life Is Like A Banana by Tony Wilson: 

Tony Wilson is an amateur artist, captain of industry, husband, brewer, grandad… and all round eccentric.  Although born in Ireland, I am claiming him as one of our own.  This is a collection of his diaries. 

The diaries reveal his private thoughts, his marking of historical events, his holidays abroad.  These are accompanied by what can only be described as beautiful watercolour pictures.  In between this, the author is working on a grand unified theory of life turned down by everyone from The Telegraph to philosophy magazines.  And has since been published!

Alongside this is the ebb and flow of human existence -  becoming a grandfather and the death of his beloved wife.  The book ends with a nude portrait of himself and that is a fitting way to end it.  It’s not a long read at 49 pages, but it has a haunting, human quality that you’ll be returning to for years.  

It’s published by Anthony Eyre on June 9th and I thank Grace Pilkington for a preview copy.  

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao:

In Tokyo, Hana takes over as the owner of her Dad’s pawnshop, which is the beginning of a mystical, magical journey through strange worlds.  

It’s the basis for an excellent fantasy book and I can see what it is aiming for here: a prose representation of a Studio Ghibli book, or the more fanciful side of manga that doesn’t involve exploding heads or teenage girls.  It’s got the semblance of that,  it is hidebound by it’s didactic narrative - barely a page passes without some life lesson, which often obscures the fantastical nature of the writing.

It’s the second book from the Far East I’ve blogged on this year (after The Marigold Mind Laundry) where the brilliant concept; is polluted by the ‘life lessons’.  More imagination and less illumination would have made for a better read.  It’s published by Bantam on January 16th, 2025 and I thank them for a preview.  #watermoon.  

 Another Man In The Street by Caryl Phillips:

Victor arrives in England from St Kitts in mid-1960’s England - the novel follows his life and career to the present day.  

Firstly, let’s praise the prose, which achieves a lot with its simple, first person narrative.  Structurally, is where the novel’s ambition falls short.  Our sympathies are with Victor in the early part of the novel, which switches when we learn more of his character in the final third. The narrative flashes back and forth and often, scenes break for decades to pass. 

The characters are well drawn (I particularly like Victor’s first British friend, a Scouse barman), but the author dispenses with them far too quickly. And again, it follows the recent trend of short, literary novels where the construction seems more important than the actual substance.  

It’s pitched as a post-Windrush novel of black British experience, but it is too brief, too inconclusive and on the edge of perfection to completely be that. It’s published by Bloomsbury on 16th Jan, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy.  #anothermaninthestreet.  

 Hot Singles In Your Area by Jordan Shively:

Noah is a dissolute young man who needs a job.  He gets one with ‘Printed Matter’, a local freesheet; which is a front for an organisation that contains something a lot more mysterious than missing dogs and items for sale.  

If you were looking for something that was Harry Potter for grownups (and slightly less hateful), a little Lovecraftian and with a hint of Pratchett and Gaiman, you might find it here.  It’s weaknesses for me lie in its structure - the three POV construction seems too episodic.  See also, it’s use of pages from the newspaper itself, repeated words and illustrations use up what is an already short page count (just under 200).  

It’s emblamatic of an idea that could have done with more work and space.  It’s a weird read that some will find wonderful, but not for me.  It’s released by Unbound on 7th November and I thank them for a preview copy.  #hotsinglesinyourarea.  

 The Fecking Fabulous Forties Club by Freya Kennedy:

Becca has a crisis of confidence, brought on the death of her best friend’s Mum.  This causes her to re-evaluate her life - socially, parentally, romantically. 

It’s a decent concept for this genre of book, but that market is so overcrowded, the book’s themselves have to be so distinctive to stand out.  It’s funny, where it needs to be funny, but structurally it’s too slow in the narrative.  That itself is propelled by dialogue, which leaves Becca as the only character in the whole thing with any depth.  Where it needs to say anything meaningful (about mortality, growing old, being a parent) the tone seems confessional, rather than what is pitched as a comic novel.  

If anything, it resembles a Marian Keyes book (the Irish setting, a wisecracking Mammy)… but it lacks the comic scalpel and mastery of plot.  It’s published by Boldwood Books on August 20th and  I thank them for a preview copy.  #thefeckingfabulousfortiesclub

Heart Be At Peace by Donal Ryan

If my blogging has been marked by anything this year, it is been debut authors,  it I’ve also read a number of books by Irish writers.  Ryan seems to be popular, the writing is efficient enough.  It seems to be a state of the nation novel, which is a trend in Irish fiction as the country itself sails into uncharted waters.  

It seems, at times to be an indentikit of what an Irish novel looks like in 2024 (the first person narrative of Orla Mackay’s Mouthing), the reflection of Irish history to predict it’s future (Niamh Mulvey’s The Ammendments, one of the best novels this year).  It’s also got some of Roddy Doyle’s sardonic wit and a little hint of Anne Enright’s Kubrickian aloofness. 

The narrative, however seems loose, disconnected.  There’s the odd current of darker waters, but it’s a short novel, in a year of short novels; that doesn’t always have the literary weight that it’s aiming for. It’s published by Random House on 8th August and I thank them for a preview copy.   #heartbeatpeace.

 Star Wars - The Rise And Fall Of The Galactic Empire by Dr Chris Kempshall:

I was lucky enough to meet Dr Kempshall at an event organised by Agile Rabbit for his book, Death Stars And Democracy.  That was one where he traced the DNA of an increasingly labyrinthine Star Wars universe into history and politics.

This is as much more expansive work, with an impish, geeky but Jedi masterly tone.  Taking the persona of Beaumont Kin, a soldier in the Resistance, who in the aftermath of The Battle Of Exegol has returned to his role as a historian.  Exgeol is the final battle depicted in Star Wars Episode IX, but you knew that already, didn’t you?

It’s a book that wears that arch concept lightly.  But it is also one where he is able to draw together different aspects of that history, but also make it compelling, put a new spin on things and even question plot holes.  I also loved the odd wink to the fans, such as the end of the chapter on the attack on Yavin (‘How would the empire strike back?’) and the mentions of The Emperor’s emissary who would execute those who were underperforming. 

It’s an essential read for the Star Wars fan in your life and is available now from Doring Kindersley.