Rosh's Reviews

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...

AUTHOR: Patrick Nzabonimpa GENRE: Short Story Collection, OwnVoices. PUBLICATION DATE: April 14, 2026 RATING: 3.4 stars. In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices short story collection set in Rwanda. Focused on ordinary citizens caught in unusual circumstances. The writing quality differs across stories, but the plots and characters are distinct enough to hold attention. The endings were a mixed bag for me. Still, a good option for fans of slice-of-life storytelling. This collection contains fourteen stories, each set in Rwanda. Though the setting is visible in many stories, the content is primarily character-oriented, with every story focussing more on its people than on the place or prose. There is no author's note or foreword introducing any theme to this set of stories. The title, though poetic, also doesn’t offer a big clue about the content. The blurb though has a significant clue: “ordinary Rwandans pushed to extraordinary choices […] confront the moments that reshape them—moments where...

AUTHOR: Yume Kitasei NARRATOR: Eunice Wong GENRE: Science Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary eco-thriller about two sisters who go on an epic sea journey to search for their missing third sister. Character-oriented, decent pacing. Interesting plotline and characters, great worldbuilding. Three sections, with the impact of each going steadily downwards. A good option that sadly misses out on the chance to be great. Plot Preview: In a world ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, twenty-two-year-old Skipper, a skilled sailor, makes a meagre living by reselling plastic debris she finds in the ocean. Though the youngest of three sisters, Skipper lives alone with her grandmother, who isn't that kind to her. Then Skipper learns that her eldest sister Nora is missing. Nora had left home a decade ago to work with an organisation focussing on a solution to the global food crisis. Nora has been Skipper’s idol for a lon...

AUTHOR: Don Winslow GENRE: Short Novels Collection PUBLICATION DATE: January 27, 2026 RATING: 4.33 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of six short novels, each a character-oriented story of moral conflicts and misdemeanours. Excellent in variety, plot development, writing, pacing, and endings. Much recommended! Don’t read the GR blurb. The blurb calls author Don Winslow "America's King of Crime Fiction" and “America’s greatest living crime writer”. But I had never even heard of him! 🤭 ( Put this down to my relative abstinence from the thriller genre in recent years. ) Those two labels were impossible to resist, so with the assurance of this having ‘six short novels’ instead of one full-length novel, I decided to give this collection a go. Now that I read it, I am wondering why I haven’t ever read him before! It’s important to remember that the book promises six short novels, not short stories. With the total page count being about 300 pages, each entry gets more than eno...

AUTHOR: Megha Majumdar NARRATOR: Soneela Nankani GENRE: Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: October 14, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary dystopian novel set in India. Character-oriented, steady-paced (but not fast). True to present reality despite being set in an unknown future time. Excellent exploration of human behaviour. Much recommended. Not for those looking for light, relaxing stories. Plot Preview: Near-future Kolkata, India. Ma, her two-year-old daughter Mishti and Ma’s elderly father Dadu have to stay just a few days more in their climate-battered city with its heat and food shortage. They have finally procured their climate-approved visas, and a week later, they will join Ma’s husband in Michigan USA. To their horror, the next morning, Ma’s purse is stolen, and with it have gone their visa-stamped passports. Can Ma somehow find those valuable documents before their flight? The story is set over the course of one week, and comes to us in parallel...

AUTHOR: Liadan Ní Chuinn GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: January 20, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A short story collection. Character-driven, introspective, mostly gloomy. Some good bits of writing here and there but on the whole, this failed to capture my attention. As I have enjoyed whatever Irish works I read, I thought that this collection, promoted as a debut collection by an Irish writer, would be my cup of tea. [ One big mistake I made here was to assume that “Irish writer” meant a writer from Ireland. I forgot about Northern Ireland, a country I know very little about.  😬] What is further intriguing is that other than that fact that the author was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, we know nothing about them. ‘Liadan Ní Chuinn’ is a pseudonym, and the writer has no publicity photos or social media presence under this identity. It is quite brave of a debut writer of literary short stories to refuse promotional mandates. Sadly, the above made no differ...

AUTHOR: Keri Hulme GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 1984 RATING: 1.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fiction about three broken people and their intersecting paths. Enjoyed the setting and the glimpses into indigenous Māori culture. Character-oriented and slow, which was fine for me. Stream of consciousness writing, poetic prose, surrealism, and extreme scenes of corporal abuse against a child, none of which work for me. Not my kind of book. Plot Preview: Kerewin Holmes: A reclusive artist who prefers staying in solitude in her “Tower”. Simon: A mute boy who breaks into her home and somehow makes himself a regular presence in Kerewin’s life. Joe: Simon’s foster father who is a strange mixture of tenderness and aggressiveness. Once Simon and Joe become regulars in Kerewin’s life, we learn more about the trio and their complex personalities through their interactions. The story is written in their perspectives shifting between first and third person at random. Take...

AUTHOR: Ingvild H. Rishøi TRANSLATOR: Diane Oatley GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: December 2, 2025 RATING: 3.2 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of three stories set in the Scandinavian winter. Compelling but also frustrating. I liked the character-oriented writing, but the frequent flashbacks and overload of introspection affected my enjoyment. More suited to literary fiction readers. This collection was first published in Norway under the title "Vinternoveller" in 2014. It was translated from Norwegian to English in 2019 by Diane Oatley. The same translation is now available under a new publisher in December 2025. I had first experienced Norwegian author’s Ingvild H. Rishøi’s writing in the novella ‘Brightly Shining’ , the first of her books to be translated to English. While the ending left me a bit befuddled, I had fond memories of the rest of the work. This is why I decided to give this collection a go. A foolhardy decision, considering how short storie...

AUTHOR: Gianni Solla TRANSLATOR: Richard Dixon GENRE: Historical Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: November 11, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A character-oriented historical fiction set in 1940s Italy about a teen whose life changes one summer. Good character development, interesting incorporation of the fascist propaganda in WWII Italy. A plotline that is dark and hopeful at the same time. Three sections that are a bit too distinct from each other. The ending, though impactful, left me with mixed feelings. Very relevant in today’s world despite the historical setting. Recommended, but not to all. Plot Preview: (This preview barely represents this complex story. The GR blurb contains more details if you want a preview beyond the initial few chapters.) 1942. Caserta, Italy. Davide is the illiterate son of a pig farmer. Born with one leg shorter than the other, he knows he is destined to stay in his small town but yearns for a different life. Two key incidents initiate a chang...

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Harpman TRANSLATOR: Ros Schwartz GENRE: Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic. PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 1995 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A brilliant post-apocalyptic fiction about a group of women in a deserted world. Innovative plotline, excellent character development, vivid imagery, thought-provoking writing. A fabulous combination of bleakness and hope. No closure. Much recommended, though not to all. Plot Preview: An unknown time. An unknown place. An underground bunker where forty women reside. They have no memories of how they got there, or of how long they have been there. Most have minimal memories of their lives before this endless, monotonous captivity. The only exception is a teenaged girl who has absolutely no recollection of ever being outside the bunker, and hence doesn’t even know what the others are missing. When an opportunity presents itself for a change, this young girl is the first one to grab it, acting as the beacon of hope for future survival...

AUTHOR: Lily King GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fiction focussing on a young woman, the men in her life and how they affected her path. Begins shaky (probably because the key characters are young adults and didn’t resonate with me), but gets a bit steadier as it progresses. Not as whimsical as the cover suggests, but the title is the good fit for the plot. Thought-provoking, but also dragged, pretentious and unnecessarily depressing. Those who have read ‘Writers and Lovers’ might enjoy the secret connection this book has to its plot, but this is written as and works as a standalone. Recommended, but not to all. Plot Preview: In the senior year of college, our unnamed first-person narrator meets two students in her Literature class: Sam and Yash. The trio become good friends, and engage regularly in battles of the intellect through banter, discussions, and card games. The boys nickname the narrator “Jordan”, an...