Oct | 2025 | Theresa Smith Writes
10 posts published by Theresa Smith Writes during October 2025| Theresa Smith Writes
10 posts published by Theresa Smith Writes during October 2025| Theresa Smith Writes
Continuing on with this series of short stories by Faber, this week I’ve read two more during my lunch breaks at work. Some brief thoughts on each: Mrs Fox by Sarah Hall – This one was unexpectedly odd in the direction it moved, yet strangely compelling. I’m still not sure what to make of it. … Continue reading Faber Stories: Two Brief Reviews| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: On the twelfth day of her hunger strike, Maggy is unable to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. That’s true of what brought her here too: was she IRA, or did she just take risks for the sake of a friend? Julia O’Faolain paints a portrait of … Continue reading Short Story Review: Daughters of Passion by Julia O’Faolain| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. She’s drawn into simmering personal dramas. Her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes … Continue reading Book Review: Intimacies by Katie Kitamura| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Nonfiction winner of the Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Prize for 2025 Documenting the damaging role of anxiety in our lives is hardly new, but Touched takes us inside the destabilising riot of a three-day panic attack with such insight, honesty and humour that the perspective we gain is revelatory and overwhelmingly hopeful. This book has … Continue reading Touched by Kim Kelly| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: A rich historical novel about the aftermath of betrayal, from the Booker prize-winner. Isabel Osmond, a spirited, intelligent young heiress, flees to London after being betrayed by her husband, to be with her beloved cousin Ralph on his deathbed. After a sombre, silent existence at her husband’s Roman palazzo, Isabel’s daring escape … Continue reading Book Review: Mrs Osmond by John Banville| Theresa Smith Writes
Translated by Jenny McPhee ~~ Audiobook Narrated by Suzanne Toren About the Book: An Italian family, sizable, with its routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable, comes to life in the pages of Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. Giuseppe Levi, the father, is a scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for … Continue reading Book Review: Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg| Theresa Smith Writes
Translated by Sophie Hughes About the Book: Shortlisted, International Booker Prize, United Kingdom, 2025 Longlisted, National Book Award for Translated Literature, United States, 2025 They have ev…| Theresa Smith Writes
This week I’ve been enjoying these Faber shorts. They’re easy to devour in one sitting and provide an undemanding read for a busy mind. I’ve become a little addicted to them. Some brief thoughts on these four: Homeland by Barbara Kingsolver – A surprisingly deep story about family heritage and culture within a context of … Continue reading Faber Stories: Four Brief Reviews| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognised as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, Cloudstreet is Tim Winton’s sprawling, comic epic about luck and love, fortitude and forgiveness, and the magic of the everyday. After two separate catastrophes, two very different families leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. … Continue reading Cloudstreet by Tim Winton| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: The bestselling, Booker shortlisted novel by one of Britain’s greatest living novelists. Set in New England mainly and London partly, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families – the Belseys and the Kipps – and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching … Continue reading Book Review: On Beauty by Zadie Smith| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one woman’s headlong descent …| Theresa Smith Writes
9 posts published by Theresa Smith Writes during September 2025| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: A warm, tender and funny story about unlikely friendships, second chances, and the magic of soul music.**Selected as a book of 2024 by the Guardian, New Statesman and…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Mitchell is a brilliant biologist, committed to the environment and the growing global antinatalist movement. For one month each year he lives with his colleague Frances in a utopia…| Theresa Smith Writes
Introduced by Susan Wyndham Published in HEAT 21 – Giramondo Publishing Previously unpublished, The Last Days was discovered by Susan Wyndham among Elizabeth Harrower’s papers in the Na…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Years ago, Sukie moved in with Nathan because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go. Now they are on the brink of the inevitable. Sally Ro…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Van Diemen’s Land, 1839. A young woman of means arrives in Hobart, with a young boy in her care. Leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, Caroline Douglas must na…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Winter 1962. As Britain becomes engulfed in one the coldest and longest winters on record, the lives of two newly married couples are changed in surprising and irrevocable ways. LON…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It’s the early 1990s in Glasgow, and Stephen – music loving romantic – has emerged from a lengthy hospital stay diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood disease …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: In the heart-aching new novel from the author of the award–winning Golden Child, a mother searches for the daughter she left behind a lifetime ago. Trinidad, 1980: Dawn Bishop, aged…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country brings together …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore are meant for each other they just don’t know it yet. Though each has found both heartache and joy in the wild Irish landscape, their paths a…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected. It’s…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a masterfully reflective story about one woman coming to terms with the demons of her past and finding a new path forward. The fi…| Theresa Smith Writes
9 posts published by Theresa Smith Writes during May 2025| Theresa Smith Writes
5 posts published by Theresa Smith Writes during August 2025| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It is the late 1960s in Ireland. Nora Webster is living in a small town, looking after her four children, trying to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. She is fiercely …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her…| Theresa Smith Writes
The Long Prospect is Elizabeth Harrower’s second novel, published in 1958. It is set in a fictional town called Ballowra, which is loosely based on Newcastle. I didn’t get quite the sam…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter — which outlined the principles of democracy and freedom in South Africa — comes a novel set in the township where it was …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Set against the wild backdrop of an intense heatwave in Europe, this is a story about sibling relationships – what holds a family together and what might fracture it forever. …| Theresa Smith Writes
Down in the City is Elizabeth Harrower’s first novel, published in 1957. It tells the story of Esther Prescott, a sheltered woman who has grown up wealthy and motherless, who marries a man af…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Charlie, a prime-time radio producer in her early thirties, has always had a big group of friends – until she left her husband, and they all sided with him. Now she finds herself fl…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved from cosmopolitan London back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. B…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: In the freezing January of 1989, mother-of-two Birdie Keller wakes to the news she’s been waiting seventeen years to hear: the man who destroyed her life has been freed from jail. B…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: When Graham Cavanaugh divorced his first wife it was to marry his girlfriend, Audra, a woman as irrepressible as she is spontaneous and fun. But, Graham learns, life with Audra can …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter. That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewi…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It is 1987, and in the aftermath of a great storm, Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends for her to follow a long-stand…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Former London police officer Rose Campbell has been estranged from her daughter, Lou, for almost a decade. But when Lou disappears from a remote Western Australian beach, and the po…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has bee…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it’s an opportunity to connect with his 14-year-old son as they travel halfway across…| Theresa Smith Writes
For those of you who are only connected with my reviews here and not over on Instagram and Facebook, I thought I’d just pop up a quick announcement. We welcomed a beautiful female four-year-o…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Duncan is charming, handsome – and Jane falls in love with him easily. But he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City. Jane sees Duncan’s old girlfriends everywhe…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: From the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake comes a stunningly beautiful tale about love, family and seeking a new life in the aftermath of tragedy …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: ‘Lonely mouth … It’s a Japanese expression. It means, like, you feel like you want to eat something, but you don’t know what it is. You’re looking for …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Broome 2023: when Saskia’s free-spirited mother leaves her a caravan in her will, it doesn’t make sense. Saskia is a schoolteacher, tied to plans and schedules, even if they are beg…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Easter Sunday, 1938. Ivy is nineteen and ready for her life to finally begin. In the idyllic Sussex countryside, her sprawling, bohemian family and their friends gather for lunch, a…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wi…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: One will lose his mind. One will pay. One will agonise. And one will die. Duy, Phong, Minh, and Edmond have been best friends since childhood. Now, as young men running their famili…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: WINNER OF THE 2025 MUD LITERARY PRIZE Missing in every sense of the word, a man walks into the landscape and doesn’t stop. In all weather and across all kinds of terrain, Ingv…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask. Then her ex-husband Max t…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: 1918, Belowla. As the Great War grinds to an end, Adelaide Roberts accompanies her father to a rugged island off the south coast of New South Wales. While loss and deprivation …| Theresa Smith Writes
(Molly the Maid #3) About the Book: Molly the maid is no stranger to secrets… She sees everything behind closed doors at the Regency Grand hotel: wiping away the dust and grime of guests passing th…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: WINNER OF THE READINGS NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION PRIZE Mary Anne is painfully aware that she’s not a good wife and not a good mother, and is slowly realising that she no longer w…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researche…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: What would you do if you found out you’d been raising another couple’s child – and they’ve been raising yours? Fourteen years ago, Kelsey and Raf Maccioni le…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It’s 1849 on the west coast of Ireland. Resilient Honora O’Donoghue is accustomed to fending for herself and to reading the language of the natural world. It was always said she’d b…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: When Giselle escapes to the north Yorkshire village of Hollydale, she doesn’t give much thought to what she might find there. She’s more concerned with what she’s leavin…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: WINNER OF THE 2024 MATT RICHELL AWARD FOR NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditi…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Her family’s story made Henry Lawson famous. But was it his story to tell? Fact and fiction meld into one in this stirring family saga set against shifting landscapes and pivo…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mist…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: When Caitlin inherits a significant sum of money on her fortieth birthday, she decides to break the habits of a lifetime and throw caution to the winds. She’s about to tell he…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, …| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: Lucy is running from what she’s done – and what someone did to her. There’s only one person who might understand: her sister Jess. But when Lucy arrives at her sister’s desolate cli…| Theresa Smith Writes
About the Book: From the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller Normal People, an exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family. Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Pe…| Theresa Smith Writes
