‘Call me Magda’, invites Mary Magdalene, and I’ll tell you the truth about Jesus and I… Mary Magdalene has been the subject of much discussion in the two thousand odd years since she, Jesus and Jesus’ disciples preached in ancient Galilee. Now, in Ursula Werner’s modern retelling of Mary’s life, ‘Magda’ gives readers her own […]
‘I’m not a romantic you know. I never was.’ Charlotte Lucas’ well-known rejection of Elizabeth Bennett’s emphasis on romantic love is put to the test in this re-imagining of the world of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Could Elizabeth have been wrong in her prediction that Charlotte will regret her choice of husband? Readers of […]
Imagine that you have ended up in prison, as a result of poverty and constrained life choices. Now imagine being told that you will serve out the rest of your prison sentence on the other side of the world – and you are unlikely to ever find your way home. Such is the fate facing […]
“I confess freely that I cut his throat with a carving knife.. “…in the morning I shall make the short walk from this condemned cell to the gallows here at Newgate. I understand the scaffold has been erected in the yard, inside the prison walls, not outside in the street. Is that so?” Chatty convict […]
‘A glorious mash-up of William Golding and Arthur Conan Doyle’ – Val McDermid. The quote above is all you need to know, but if you’d like to learn more about Stu Turton’s latest genre-defying escapade of a book, then keep reading. What’s it about? A murder on the high seas. A detective duo. A demon […]
‘I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus.’ So begins this fascinating tale of a woman who is born into the deeply patriarchal world of first century Galilee and is sold by her father to her husband, but longs to control her own destiny. Along the way she marries Jesus Ben Joseph, more commonly […]
Sometimes, a change of reading pace is precisely what’s needed. September is bringing changes for me: two children off to school now and only my littlest lady home to kick through the leaves with me and insist that she needs my attention NOW. What better time to embrace a different, more autumnal read than the […]
The Parthenon Marbles are a controversial subject. In her new novel, Joanna D’Este Clark aims to take the debate out of the political arena and into readers’ hearts, with the ultimate desire of inspiring readers to argue for the restoration of the marbles to Greece. What’s it about? In ‘Plunder with Intent’… In 5th century […]
Sometimes writers use two stories when one would do. As much as I enjoyed reading Sara Alexander’s debut novel, ‘Under a Sardinian Sky’, it definitely feels like a book with one story to tell – and with a largely irrelevant second story tacked onto the beginning and end. What’s it about? In 1952, Carmela Chirigorni, […]
”It is a war,’ Emilio said quietly, as he always did. As though, somehow, that made everything right. As though, in war, people were allowed to become someone else entirely.’ In Sarah Day’s debut novel, ‘Mussolini’s Island’, it is 1939/1940 and war with other nations looms, but there are more immediate concerns for Emilio and […]