Review: The Toy Makers by Robert Dinsdale

I’ve always loved magical realism, ordinary worlds elevated by enchantments. My bookshelves are lined with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books, I’ve been stunned by the capacity of Jorge Luis Borges, and more recently, I enjoyed The Night Circus (which will draw many comparisons with the Toy Makers). So it’s not a huge surprise that Robert Dinsdale’s The Toy Makers was right up my street.

The book is set in a toy shop in London, and spans the period from before and after the two world wars. It fol...