The latest novel from Ishiguro is a strange beast. Quite different from his earlier works - venturing as it does into an imagined England populated by ogres, malevolent sprites and the odd dragon - a few hundred years after the Roman departure, it also explores some of the author's common themes, namely that of memory and how it fades and gets suppressed and distorted, and the challenge for individuals to fully face the past.

For a book that has been critiqued by some (in my view, snobbish) commentators for straying too far into the realm of fantasy, I reckon that this is actually in many respects a brutally realistic novel. The fragility of the central relationship and the pain that comes with reconciling with past deeds and misdeeds ring all too true.

Indeed, far from being a tale of magical elves hiding pots of gold, at its heart this is a novel that explores collective memory, and how societies and cultures recover from past atrocities by forgetting. In choosing an imagined England during the Saxon expansion, Ishiguro has been able to sidestep the potential problems of choosing a more modern setting such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka or South Africa.

I really enjoyed this book, and would encourage all those unsure of whether to give it a go, to do so.