Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Kirstin Valdez Quade NARRATOR: Gary Tiedemann GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: June 16, 2021 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary literary fiction novel focusing on some flawed humans and their "wounds". Excellent character and plot development. Well-structured narrative divided fairly across all the main characters. Many interesting themes. Great use of the Latin-American social culture and beliefs. Slow-paced but engrossing. Not as Christian as the title and blurb indicate, so don’t expect a faith-themed book. An astounding debut. Definitely recommended. Plot Preview: Las Penas, New Mexico, USA. This Holy Week, thirty-three-year-old Amadeo has been given the part of Jesus for the Good Friday procession. He is a misfit for this divine role, what with his tendency to alcohol, his poor track record of taking care of his family, and his low-educated unemployed status. He is trying hard to prepare well for it. But his plans get affected when his pre...

AUTHOR: Darlene Madott GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2026 RATING: 3.7 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of ten stories with one character in common. Bonus content in the form of one essay and one novella. Stories about broken relationships, their consequences, and the challenge of moving on. Focusses more on mature love than young crushes. Literary in approach. The essay and the novella were not right for me, but the stories were quite good. Recommended. This collection contains twelve entries. The first ten are interlinked stories, all featuring a character named Francesca though she isn't always the central character of the narrative. Then there’s one essay documenting the author’s own experience with betrayal and heartbreak, and finally a novella focussing on imminent loss and grief. The first thing that attracted me to this collection was the title. ‘Closing Ceremonies and Dying Times’ is such an intriguing way of labelling a set of stories abou...

AUTHOR: Katya Balen GENRE: Contemporary Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: February 17, 2026 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary literary fiction. Children's author Katya Balen's first adult fiction novel. Beautiful lyrical prose, melancholic plot, morbid lead character. Not an easy read as it's raw in its pain. A good option for those who like dark emotional stories and poetic writing. Major triggers for personal loss. Plot Preview: Anna, an author in her late thirties, has struggled to pen her second novel after a tragedy. Pressured by her deadline, she leaves London and goes to a remote cottage in rural England with no connectivity, hoping to find some inspiration. But in the marshes, an old secret resurfaces. Anna finds herself irresistibly drawn to that site, almost to the point of obsession. Can the past help Anna heal her present? The story comes to us in Anna's first-person perspective. PSA: Go in blind. The blurb is really accurate and tight-lipp...

AUTHOR: Dennis Lehane GENRE: Historical Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 25, 2023 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical fiction novel showing the interplay of race and revenge. Set against true events. Flawed characters, somewhat offbeat writing style, steady pacing. Thought-provoking. A stark, true-to-life portrayal of racism. Definitely recommended. Go in blind. Plot Preview: 1974. Mary Pat Fenessey has always lived in “Southie”, the Irish-American enclave in Boston that sticks to traditions. Things are currently heated up in the locality, not just because of the unusually hot summer but also because of the city’s decision to desegregate its public schools. One night, Mary Pat’s teenaged daughter Jules doesn’t return home. The same night, a young Black man is found dead, struck by the subway train. Two events that are unconnected, and yet change Mary Pat’s life forever. The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of Mary Pat and a couple of other key characters. A...

AUTHOR: Ben Reeves GENRE: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism. PUBLICATION DATE: July 7, 2026 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fiction work focusing on life and death and all in between. Everything in the book is beautiful, but also hurts. Interesting variety of characters, plenty of wisdom and quotable quotes, lyrical writing. The shifts in grammatical voice can get disconcerting at times. But the mellow, introspective narrative is great for the right mood. A commendable debut. Definitely recommended! Plot Preview: Death’s current identity is ‘Travis’. He lives as a modern young man in a small town, and does his job well: the job of offering some solace to the dying in their final hours on Earth. He always stays detached from the living humans around him so that he can do his job without being affected. But when his next-door neighbours – midwife Dalia and her daughters eight-year-old Layla and infant Neda – become more frequent in his *life*, Travis gets a taste of the bond...

AUTHOR: Ari Phillips GENRE: Literary Historical Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: September 15, 2026 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A genre-defying fictional work with elements of magical realism, dysfunctional family drama, intergenerational conflict, literary fiction, and philosophy. Original in its premise and creative in its execution. Too many character POVs and flashbacks. A good option for those not seeking instant gratification through fiction. Plot Preview: For more than a century, Rosa and her son Wyeth have lived quiet lives in the small town of Berkeley Springs. No one yet has noticed their unusual longevity, which is thanks to a secret spring hidden within a mountain cave. But their secret seems to be in danger of being spilled when a greedy corporate empire digs too close to the spring. Unknown to the mother-son duo, the owner of the organisation also has ties to the spring and wants more access to it. Narrated through multiple characters’ third-person perspectives and variou...

AUTHOR: Vincent Delecroix TRANSLATOR: Helen Stevenson GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 21, 2026 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fiction inspired by a true event and highlighting the moral ambiguities of human nature. Extended first person with a bit of repetition. Three somewhat lengthy chapters, but fast-paced. Thought-provoking. No quotation marks. Good translation. Recommended to literary fiction readers. Plot Preview: In November 2021, a dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK sprung a leak and later capsized in the Channel. Despite the French rescue centre getting numerous calls for help from one of the migrants, the radio operator repeatedly told them that they were in English waters and so needed to call the British authorities. She also assured them that help was on the way. But no rescue vessels came for the drowning refugees. Twenty-seven migrants perished in the freezing waters that night. Only two were saved. The above incident is true. (...

AUTHOR: Ella King GENRE: Contemporary Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: August 23, 2022 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary literary fiction novel portraying a highly toxic mother-daughter relationship. Character-oriented. Dark and disturbing. Plenty of triggers. Too much of deliberate secret-keeping and miscommunication, which sullies the overall impact. Might be a decent one-time read, as long as you aren’t looking for characters with redeeming qualities. But to me (and to my present state of mind), this felt like trauma p0rn. Plot Preview: Greenwich, UK. Seventeen-year-old Lily has just graduated from high school and is waiting to start college at Oxford. She is constantly on tenterhooks around her volatile Singaporean mother May. As her British father Charlie also can't keep his wife’s temper in check, it is up to Lily as the only other resident of the house to handle May’s devious tantrums, her elder siblings already having moved out. As May’s behaviour grows incre...

AUTHOR: Frode Grytten TRANSLATOR: Alison McCullough NARRATOR: Colin Mace GENRE: Literary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 18, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fantasy-fiction set on a fjord in Norway. Introspective, not morbid. Too many characters, too meandering and monotonous for my liking. Some unnecessary triggering and crass content. Better for those who are more about prose than plot. Recommended, but not to all. Plot Preview: One morning, Nils Vik, a ferryman, wakes up and knows that it will be the day he dies. He still wants to follow his routine, so after his morning routine, he looks around his empty house for one last time, walks out, and boards his beloved boat that he has been ferrying on the fjord for many years. As he sets off, his dead dog joins him, and one by one, several other souls also make their way to Nils Vik one by one across each of the ferry stops. Each, including the dog, discusses several things from the past, sometimes offering the ferryma...

AUTHOR: Colm Tóibín GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: March 31, 2026 RATING: 2.1 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary short-story collection by the acclaimed Irish writer. Interesting variety of characters and situations. A bit haphazard in plot development. Flat in character development. Bleak. Feels very lengthy because of the slow pacing and meandering structure. Disappointing endings at times. Didn’t work much for me. This collection comprises nine stories, a few of which have been published before in other publications. The stories are set across multiple countries, Ireland included. I had grabbed this collection mainly for two reasons. One, I have enjoyed a majority of the literary works written by contemporary Irish writers and want to explore more Irish fiction. Two, I liked one short story written by this author for Amazon Original Stories. ( ‘The Shortest Day’ ) However, this collection just wasn’t for me. For one, the 300 pages seem endless as each story is terribl...

AUTHOR: Nora Gold GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: May 1, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fiction novella about a young math-obsessed girl caught in an institution. Creative in concept, clever in execution. Dark and disturbing content. A few inclusions made me uncomfortable, though these might not affect all readers. Definitely recommended. Not for children despite the young protagonist. Plot Preview: 1968. A twelve-year-old girl is angry at being kept in a state-run children’s home. Every day, she waits for someone to come and take her back home. But why is she there? Why is she angry? The story is told to us in the unnamed narrator’s first-person point-of-view over a period of six months. I had encountered Nora Gold’s writing through the brilliant flip-book with two literary novellas, “In Sickness and In Health / Yom Kippur in a Gym” . I was impressed enough to know that I would read more of her works. This second encounter of her writing has mostly justified...

AUTHOR: Lisa Ridzén TRANSLATOR: Alice Menzies NARRATOR: Ifan Huw Dafydd GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: August 19, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemplative literary fiction about a geriatric dealing with the vagaries of old age. Contemplative, melancholic, realistic, heartbreaking. Beautifully written with no filters about aging issues. This is a mood read, but if you pick it up at the right time, it can deliver all the feels. Not for those looking for uplifting stories; the book is mostly bleak. Plot Preview: Sweden. Eighty-nine-year-old Bo has only his dog Sixten for company in his home. His wife Frederika has Alzheimer’s, because of which their son Hans admitted her in a care home some time ago, even though Bo wasn’t too happy about this decision. Now Hans feels that Bo is too old to take care of Sixten and wants to take the dog away as well. Not surprisingly, Bo is very upset. The whole narrative comes to us in Bo’s first-person perspective, reflecting upon hi...

AUTHOR: Jane Davis SERIES: The Chiswell Street Chronicles #2 GENRE: Historical Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: March 2, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical literary fiction about a bookseller couple. Based on a true story. Character-oriented storytelling. Excellent research, sensible writing, admirable depiction of 1780s-90s England. A book about books, but the books alluded to were too esoteric for me. Somewhat conversation-dominated at times, which doesn’t always work for me. The second book of the Chiswell Street Chronicles duology, and better read in series order. Definitely recommended. Plot Preview: 1780. London. Dorcas and James Lackington are ready to put their dream into action: to create a reading space where no one will feel out of place by their gender or occupation or social class. They believe that books are the best way out of poverty, which is also proven by James’ rise to his position as a successful independent bookseller. So they launch a daring soci...