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FictionFan’s Book Reviews
Welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy your visit. I’m a Scottish book blogger with fairly eclectic tastes, and I’ve been blogging about books since 2013. You’ll find indexes to my reviews in the menu at the top of the page. Alternatively, you can find a review by author, genre or title using the Find A Review drop-down box on the right, click on … Continue reading FictionFan’s Book Reviews
The Classics Club Questionnaire
To ease us into 2026, the Classics Club has set us 26 questions on our reading habits, and classics we’ve loved, hated or haven’t yet read… Continue reading The Classics Club Questionnaire
Film of the Book: Laura (1944) | Review
Otto Preminger’s film, based on Vera Caspary’s book, is lauded by viewers and critics alike. With only a few changes, it sticks reasonably closely to the events in the book, so in that sense it’s a faithful adaptation. But Preminger has made major changes to the focus, removing the element of feminism and turning it into a conventional thriller, complete with male heroes and villains, and women cast, in one way or another, as victims. Both film and book are noir classics, but which wins the Book v. Film battle? Continue reading Film of the Book: Laura (1944) | Review
TBR Thursday 482…
The current state of the TBR, and a preview of four books I’ll be reading soon: Wolf Moon by Julio Llamazares, A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, and The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean. Plus a reminder for the Henrik Pontoppidan Review-Along! Continue reading TBR Thursday 482…
Review: Shroud for a Nightingale (Dalgliesh 4) by PD James | Crime Fiction
A training session goes badly wrong, when a student nurse who had volunteered to play the patient dies horribly — but was it deliberate, accidental, or a prank gone wrong? The police can’t find any useful evidence, and the investigation slowly peters out. But then, one night, another student nurse dies, and again it looks like poison, this time taken in a whisky night-cap. Murder? Or a confession of guilt? This time the locals call in the Yard – enter Inspector Adam Dalgliesh… Continue reading Review: Shroud for a Nightingale (Dalgliesh 4) by PD James | Crime Fiction
The Looking Forward Challenge 2025/6
Playing catch-up again… It’s becoming an annual thing that I challenge myself each year on the basis of the series of Looking Forward posts I’ve done in the previous year, where I’ve looked back at old reviews which I’d finished by saying something along the lines of “I’ll be looking forward to reading more of her work/this series/his books in the future” to see if I … Continue reading The Looking Forward Challenge 2025/6
Review: Laura by Vera Caspary | Classic Noir
A woman is found dead in her plush New York apartment, shot in the face. Laura Hunt had been a modern young woman, with a successful career in advertising, and had been about to be married. As Detective Mark McPherson investigates, he talks to the people who knew her and gradually develops a fascination for her, that almost seems like the beginning of love. And then something happens that turns the investigation on its head and has profound emotional consequences for everyone involved… Continue reading Review: Laura by Vera Caspary | Classic Noir
TBR Thursday 481…
The current state of the TBR, and a preview of four books I’ll be reading soon: Maigret and the Informer by Georges Simenon, Past Lying by Val McDermid, The Chinese Gold Murders by Robert van Gulik, and March Violets by Philip Kerr. Continue reading TBR Thursday 481…
Review: Manchester Slingback by Nicholas Blincoe | Crime Fiction
Jake Powell is a successful casino manager in London, but fifteen years ago he was part of Manchester’s 1980s gay scene – a vibrant world of clubs and discos, while rent-boys and hustlers plied their trades in the dark corners. Now DI Davey Green arrives to remind Jake of those days, and of his best friend Johnny, who vanished one night. Now his body has been found on the moors, and Green wants Jake’s help to find out who killed him and why… Continue reading Review: Manchester Slingback by Nicholas Blincoe | Crime Fiction
Review: Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane | Short Stories
This collection of twelve interconnected stories explores the many lives that intersect, directly or indirectly, with a man who will one day become a serial killer. Moving freely across time, the stories follow characters whose paths cross his long before his crimes, as well as those who encounter the consequences years later. Through shifting perspectives and settings, the collection builds an intricate picture of the ripple effects from this kind of inexplicable crime. Continue reading Review: Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane | Short Stories
New Year’s Resolutions aka…
It has become an annual tradition at this time each year that I look back at the bookish resolutions I made last year, confess just how badly I failed, and then, nothing daunted, set some more targets for me to fail at next year. I’ve had a barnstorming year of reading, due largely to my self-imposed ban on obsessive news watching. But did all that reading translate into achieving my targets for the year, or did I get sidetracked? Let’s see! Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions aka…
TBR Thursday (on a Tuesday) 480 – Quarterly Round-Up
A look back at the past three months to see how I’m getting on with all the various challenges I set myself. Stats and brief summaries of books reviewed for each challenge – the Classics Club, the Looking Forward Challenge, the King Kong Challenge, and the CWA Daggers Challenge. Continue reading TBR Thursday (on a Tuesday) 480 – Quarterly Round-Up
TBR Thursday (on a Monday) 479…
The current state of the TBR, and a preview of four books I’ll be reading soon: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench, Shroud of Darkness by ECR Lorac, White River Crossing by Ian McGuire, and The Hand of Strange Children by Robert Richardson. Continue reading TBR Thursday (on a Monday) 479…
Festive Frippery: A-carolling we will go!
A bookish version of On the Twelfth Day of Christmas! Merry Christmas to all! Continue reading Festive Frippery: A-carolling we will go!
Tuesday Terror! The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen
Martha Pym wants two things at Christmas – the plate that’s missing from her prized Crown Derby dinner service, and to see a ghost. When she visits the solitary recluse who occupies “Hartley’s”, she might be lucky enough to find both. The fretful porpentine presents: a delightfully spooky little story, perfect for Christmas Eve! Continue reading Tuesday Terror! The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen
Wanderlust Bingo Challenge 2025
For the last few years, I’ve had a Wanderlust Bingo Challenge on the go, to nudge me to read books outside my usual UK comfort zone. Each time it’s started off well and then tailed off into a mega-struggle to fill the last two or three elusive boxes. This year I decided to give myself a break and not start a new challenge. However, the other night I was bored, so decided to waste some time by seeing how many boxes I could fill on the most recent bingo card from books I’d read this year… Continue reading Wanderlust Bingo Challenge 2025
FictionFan Awards 2025 – Modern Literary Fiction & Book of the Year
A standing ovation, please, for this year’s nominees and winners of the annual FictionFan Awards of 2025. In the Modern Literary Fiction category, we have politics, deception, murder, border reiving and madness. We travel to Scotland (twice), England, Barcelona and Venice. We spend time in the present and the past. All brilliantly written — but which book will come out on top? And then the Grand Finale — the announcement of FictionFan’s Book of the Year 2025! Continue reading FictionFan Awards 2025 – Modern Literary Fiction & Book of the Year
Review: The Winter Garden Mystery (Daisy Dalrymple 2) by Carola Dunn | Cosy Crime
Daisy Dalrymple has a new assignment for her magazine – to write about Occles Hall and take some photographs. She soon finds there are tensions among the family at the Hall and between the Hall and the local village. And then the gardener finds a body under a bush in the winter garden! The police promptly arrest the young gardener who had been in love with the dead girl, but Daisy is convinced he didn’t kill her, so she calls on the help of her friend, Alec Fletcher, a Scotland Yard detective… Continue reading Review: The Winter Garden Mystery (Daisy Dalrymple 2) by Carola Dunn | Cosy Crime
Review: Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark | Literary Fiction
Fleur Talbot is a fledgling author, in the process of writing her first novel. To pay her rent, she has taken on a job as secretary to the Autobiographical Association, run by Sir Quentin Oliver. He has collected a small group of people who think the world will be interested in their mundane lives. Part of Fleur’s job is to type up these autobiographies, fixing grammar and spelling as she goes. Fleur decides to make them more interesting by adding bits out of her own imagination… Continue reading Review: Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark | Literary Fiction
Review: The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth | Classic Thriller
To some, President Charles de Gaulle is a hero. To others, he is a traitor – the man who handed independence to France’s last great colony, Algeria. The OAS is a far-right, paramilitary group dedicated to removing de Gaulle and returning France to her days of imperial glory. Several attempts have already been made on de Gaulle’s life, all unsuccessful, and the OAS has now decided that they can only achieve their aims by bringing in an unknown – a hired assassin, codenamed the Jackal… Continue reading Review: The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth | Classic Thriller
FictionFan Awards 2025 – Modern Crime Fiction/Thriller
A drum roll, please, for this year’s nominees and winners of the annual FictionFan Awards of 2025. In the Modern Crime Fiction/Thriller category, we have a favourite series, a new translation, a new series from a favourite author, a new-to-me author, and the triumphant end to a trilogy. We travel to France, London, the fictional Kindle County in the USA, Iceland and the Isle of Wight! We meet the guilty, the innocent, and those affected by crime – and detectives, lawyers and even Shakespeare! But which book will come out on top? Continue reading FictionFan Awards 2025 – Modern Crime Fiction/Thriller
FictionFan's Book Reviews 