David C

The Golden Hour is William Nicholson's third novel set in and around the fictional Sussex of Edenfield. It picks up plot strands from the previous two books - some of them colourful, others darker toned - and weaves them with new ones to create a pattern that is as varied and surprising as ever. But readers of all three books will notice a subtle change of tone as well. The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life and All the Hopeful Lovers were carefully detailed - there was a sense of diligent world-building about them, of every part of the canvas being filled in. ..read more

In his previous novel, The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life, William Nicholson introduced readers to the fictional village of Edenfield and to the lives of its various inhabitants. He evoked all their quiet yearnings, quotidian frustrations, petty jealousies and spontaneous acts of decency in a style that's rarely, if ever, found in the modern English novel: a kind of knowing, sharp-eyed tenderness.

It's a curious aspect of life in the western world that while people's circumstances have, until recently at any rate, become more and more comfortable, readers also seem to have found themselves more and more in need of escape. The most obvious example of this - the ever rising popularity of fantasy fiction - has been well documented. But detective fiction, however gritty its details, still imposes a pattern and resolution on experience that it never really possesses. ..read more

Given the subject matter of Irvine Welsh's other books, you could be forgiven for misunderstanding the title of his novel, Glue. It actually refers not to substance abuse but to bonds of friendship and focuses on four main characters from Edinburgh: Terry Lawson (‘Juice Terry'), Billy Birrell (‘Business Birrell'), Andrew Galloway (‘Gally') and Carl Ewart (‘DJ N-Sign'). ..read more