Book reviews
Journal
THE MATCHBOX GIRL by Alice Jolly is the complex, richly imagined, beautifully researched and ultimately tragic story of its youthful narrator, Adelheid, who is on the autism spectrum and under the care of Dr Asperger at the Vienna Children’s Hospital, during the Second World War.
‘The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body.’ This is a cracking first line, and THE HOUNDING by Xenobe Purvis (Penguin, £9.99) offers readers a brilliant premise: a small 18th century village, a burning hot summer, a ready rumour mill, and five sisters accused of transforming themselves into terrifying hounds.
MAY WE FEED THE KING by Rebecca Perry is a whimsical, thoughtful and beautifully written debut novel from Granta, weaving between the narrator, a present-day installation curator, and the past royal court that she’s seeking to recreate.