Practice

Rosalind Brown
W&N, £18.99, pp208

Initially at least, Practice feels like the musings of a creative writing student – but that might be the point of this fine debut. Annabel, an Oxford undergraduate, who is working on an essay about Shakespeare’s sonnets, has her own hopes, crises and fantasies revealed by a narrator in pithy yet heightened prose. The student’s methodical approach to her work and life is brilliantly shattered by Brown’s ability to throw a shocking line into proceedings, so that what begins quietly becomes a compelling insight into the recesses of the human mind.

Time and Tide

Fiona Stafford
John Murray, £20, pp304

In this evocative exploration of the landscapes of Britain, Stafford reveals a guiding principle to discovering its delights. “It is always worth pausing to see what might be there,” she writes. “Before it hops away soundlessly into the shadows of the forest, or washes out to sea.” Poetic and profound, Time and Tide is something of a compendium of years of travels, conversations, books read and stories written. Wise, considered and full of surprises.

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain

Victoria MacKenzie
Bloomsbury, £8.99, pp176 (paperback)

Maybe For Thy Great Pain… was a slow-burner when published in hardback because of its bold premise: a historical novel about two groundbreaking 15th-century women with very little expository history. Margery Kempe’s visions of Christ and chaotic pilgrimages had her charged as a heretic, and Mackenzie expertly presents her experiences and connection with the ascetic Julian of Norwich as a remarkable meeting of opposing yet like-minded change-makers. No wonder For Thy Great Pain… ended up on so many best books of 2023 lists.

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