Bookshelf Review

The Italian Chapel — Philip Paris

On a windswept, isolated island in the Orkneys, 550 Italian prisoners of war are dropped in the middle of a conflict nobody quite knows how to define anymore. Out of exile, homesickness, and scrap materials, they build one of the most quietly beautiful buildings in Britain — and it's still standing today.

This week on Bookshelf Reviews, we're stepping away from the battlefield to look at WWII from a different angle: what happens after capture, and what a community owes the people it's forced to absorb. We follow Domenico Chiocchetti, the artist behind the chapel, and Aldo — the group's resident wide boy, who gets more attached to a chicken than he'd like to admit, and who nearly loses his life salvaging teak from a sunken wreck as a surprise for a friend.

The west coast of Scotland has a way of getting under your skin, and few novels capture Loch Ewe's wartime transformation quite like Skylark's Secret by Fiona Valpy.

In this episode, I explore a dual-timeline historical novel following Flora Gordon in 1939 and her daughter Lexie in 1979, two women forty years apart searching for belonging, romance and a way through personal loss against the backdrop of a Highland village turned wartime naval port.

If you enjoy character-driven romance, tight-knit communities and stories rooted in the Scottish coastline, this could be one to add to your reading list.

The Scottish Highlands have inspired stories for centuries, but few novels capture the beauty, hardship and atmosphere of the Cairngorms quite like The Atholl Expedition by Alex Roddie.

In this episode, I explore a historical novel set in 1847 that blends Highland life, unforgettable landscapes and characters searching for their place in the world. We talk about Duncan Macadie, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the wild scenery that becomes a character in its own right.

If you enjoy historical fiction, mountain landscapes and stories that value people over spectacle, this could be one to add to your reading list.

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The Berlin Series reaches its conclusion.

Secret Hotel Berlin follows Adam, a man who has spent years trying to distance himself from his East German childhood. But when a chance discovery uncovers a forgotten family story, he begins a journey through Berlin's divided past that slowly reshapes the way he sees his history — and himself.

This isn't a book about dramatic twists or high-stakes action. It's about memory, identity, forgiveness, and the quiet courage of looking at the past through new eyes. Sometimes the stories we've carried all our lives just need a different light.

As the final episode in the Berlin Series, this review reflects on three remarkable novels that explore one city across some of the most extraordinary chapters of the twentieth century.

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The Berlin Series continues.

Berlin Sisters takes us deeper into wartime Berlin — inside a family living a double life while the regime sits at their dinner table. A father who reached his moral turning point before the book begins. A eldest daughter who knew. And a youngest daughter, Ava, who did not.

Until one night. A sound from the loft. And four strangers staring back at her in the dark.

This is not a book about battles. It is a book about what happens when the veil lifts — and what one family decided to do when they could no longer look away.

Get your copy of Berlin Sisters on Bookshop.org —https://uk.bookshop.org/a/17227/9781662504099  or Amazon — https://amzn.to/4oJSGbG 

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

France is done. The Berlin Series begins.

Berlin Wife by Marion Kummerow takes us to Germany between 1922 and 1936 — the years of Hitler's ascendancy. The years in which everything that would come was already being built, law by law, small concession by small concession.

Two couples. Two Jewish men carrying their faith in completely different ways. Two women watching in real time as the country they live in decides their husbands are no longer welcome in it.

This is not a book about battles. It is a book about what it costs to remain human and loyal when the world around you is choosing not to.

One warning — get all three books in the Berlin Series before you start. You will thank me later.

Full blog review and show notes at [INSERT BLOG LINK]

Get your copy of Berlin Wife on Amazon —https://amzn.to/4ezggEF

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The France Trilogy ends where history began.

Pas a pas, se va luenh. Step by step, one goes far.

An ancient Occitan proverb. Eight centuries old. Spoken in Kate Mosse's Labyrinth by two women who never meet — and yet walk the same path, face the same danger and carry the same secret.

Carcassonne. 1209 and today. Two timelines. One city that has been holding its secrets for eight hundred years.

Alais in 1209 is entrusted by her father with the protection of something ancient and sacred — something that must not fall into the wrong hands. Alice in the present day enters a cave and finds herself somewhere between worlds. From that moment she is in danger.

What Kate Mosse does that very few authors manage is give you two complete worlds and make you care equally about both.

I also share something personal in this episode — I stood inside the walls of Carcassonne three years ago. And what I felt there confirmed every word of this book.

For anyone who has ever stood somewhere ancient and felt the resonance of footsteps that came long before theirs.

Get your copy of Labyrinth on Bookshop.org — https://uk.bookshop.org/a/17227/9781474625906

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Today we stay in France. But this is a very different France from last time.

No barges. No lavender fields. No slow journey south.

This is Occupied Dijon. 1940s. And the tension is underneath everything.

The French Affair by Theresa Howes is the second episode of the France Trilogy — and it asks a question that will stay with you long after you finish listening.

What would you do if someone you loved completely suddenly believed the worst about you? Not because they wanted to. But because everything they could see told them it was true.

This is a story about what a place looks like on the surface and what it carries underneath. About two women whose courage runs through every page even when only one of them is visible. And about the kind of truth that belongs only to you — because there is nobody you can share it with.

If Dijon is on your travel list — listen to this first. You will see it differently when you arrive.

Get your copy of The French Affair on Bookshop.org — https://uk.bookshop.org/a/17227/9780008547912 or Amazon —https://amzn.to/4dDxK25

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Today we head to France. Specifically to a bookshop — not on a high street, not in a mall — on a barge, moored quietly along the Seine in the heart of Paris.

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George is part love story, part road trip, part soul searching — wrapped in the most beautiful French landscapes you'll ever read about.

Jean Perdu runs a floating literary apothecary. He can read exactly what every customer needs. The one person he cannot fix is himself.

This is Episode 1 of the France Trilogy — three episodes covering three books set in three corners of France.

If you have ever had something sitting unopened — a letter, a conversation, a truth you kept putting off — this book is for you.

Get your copy on Bookshop.org —https://uk.bookshop.org/a/17227/9780349140377

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Welcome to Bookshelf Reviews. I'm Shane — and this is where book lovers come to talk books.

In this pilot episode I open up a quote that stopped me in my tracks:

"To read a book is to take a journey, to travel into a vast unknown, to hear the voices of angels both living and dead."

When you read — where do you go? Whose voice do you hear?

I share what reading means to me, why historical fiction is my world and what Wilbur Smith's Africa taught me about what great descriptive writing can do.

This is a show for people who love books the way I love them. The kind that pull you somewhere you didn't expect. New episodes every fortnight.

Get your copy of the books we discuss on  Bookshelf Review Bookshop UK

This episode contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.