Who would you become if you could be a different you? For one heady summer, sensible school teacher Natalie takes the plunge to find out. But could the reappearance of Nasty Nat spell disaster for her real life when the sunshine fades? Louise Candlish presents Natalie’s growing desire for a more glamorous life in suspenseful […]
I was fascinated by the premise of this book. Why? Well, where to start? The title is intriguing enough in itself, (departure, not disappearance, a choice which highlights that they made a remarkably abrupt decision to leave, rather than being (say) spirited away by kidnappers, and ‘The Frasers’, creating a sense of unity (against who?) […]
One of the best things about running this blog is discovering brilliant authors I didn’t know existed. Shamim Sharif is an award winning novelist, screenwriter and film director. She has written, adapted and directed her first two novels, ‘The World Unseen’ and ‘I Can’t Think Straight’, which have won international awards. ‘Despite the Falling Snow’, […]
Some titles are designed to be opaque. To tease you slightly. Perhaps to hint at myriad thematic concerns. Others are less subtle and reveal an awful lot about the story within. Take ‘You Are Next’, for instance. There’s a strong implied threat, but it also feels rather cliched and a reader might justifiably anticipate that […]
Sarah Beresford has forgotten everything: who she is, what happened to her and – crucially – why. Worse than that, Sarah is immersed in a coma, leaving her unable to communicate with those around her. She can hear, and what she hears is deeply disturbing. As her family bicker at her bedside, hinting at old […]
There are certain facts almost everyone remembers from school. Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. (Or did he?) The Dark Ages were a period of intellectual, well, darkness. (But were they?) The Magna Carta was a revolutionary document that forms the basis of our modern democracy. (So why did Oliver Cromwell call it ‘Magna Farta’?) […]
Are you ready to go on an adventure? 69 year old Yorkshireman Arthur Pepper isn’t. Since his wife died exactly one year ago, he’s clung to his routines and his house plant like life rafts and gradually lost meaningful contact with his children and the outside world. Then a chance discovery awakens a questing spirit […]
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to another person? If your actions resulted in catastrophe, could you bear to face the consequences? Journalist Rebecca Thornton’s debut novel, ‘The Exclusives’, explores the consequences when best friends Josephine and Freya betray one another in their final year at boarding school. What’s it about? Archaeologist Josephine Grey […]
Samuel Pepys is one of England’s most famous diarists. Those who know much about him might know that he wrote ten years of diary entries (from 1660-’69) until his eyesight became too poor to continue. He contemplated getting someone else to write for him, but never did. ‘Camille’ explores what might have happened if he […]
Last year I read and LOVED ‘Gooseberry: The Case of The Thieving Maharajah’. Since then, I have been waiting as patiently as possible for author Michael Gallagher to release the next in the series. Today, it is finally published in full (the first few chapters have been steadily made available over the last few weeks […]