I’ve started a Substack… Finding the Plot, mainly for writing about my allotment and gardening, but also for updates about my progress towards publication 🤞🏽Any book reviews I’ll still post here. Thank you for reading! https://open.substack.com/pub/alithurm/p/finding-the-plot-c23?r=je6wl&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=post_stats
But the garden beckons. Tube trains rattle past and there’s a green parakeet squawking in the lime tree on this warm May afternoon. My two old cats Lola and Toby (aka Little Fatty) wander in and out- sleeping on the sofa or on the sunny doorstep. And the garden beckons: Come outside. Come and play… … More May … trying to write
by Eleanor Catton Mira and Shelley run Birnam Wood, a free-lance collective of guerrilla gardeners, taking over waste land to grow crops., but their relationship is becoming fraught. When their paths cross with a ruthless billionaire their eco-ideals are put under pressure. Set in a fictionalised New Zealand, ‘Birnam Wood’ is a genuine page-turner but … More Birnam Wood
by Ted Hughes This house has been far out at sea all night,The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,Winds stampeding the fields under the windowFloundering black astride and blinding wet Till day rose; then under an orange skyThe hills had new places, and wind wieldedBlade-light, luminous black and emerald,Flexing like the lens of a … More Wind
Editing my novel… very slowly … but today I finally sorted out a chapter which has always been problematic in terms of just about everything. One part of me said just scrap it. It’ll never work. It’s far-fetched, melodramatic and unlikely. But another part, the stubborn side wouldn’t give in. So I kept going. Writing … More Progress
A busy week editing my WIP The River Brings the Sea, helped by a really useful Zalon (Salon on Zoom) on Monday evening from Words Away. Plot holes and saggy middles was led by author and writing tutor, Emma Darwin who is always great at making complex ideas comprehensible. Her original blog on all things … More Writing update
Excellent, atmospheric novel set by a Scottish loch where unrelated families are trying to make the most of a rainy summer holiday. It’s both funny, realistic and also imbued with impending tragedy. The ending is so unexpected it takes your breath away. I enjoyed Sarah Moss’s previous novella, Ghost Wall and although completely different there … More Summerwater by Sarah Moss – a review
This excellent narrative is centred on Rue, one of the ‘conjure’ women of the title, who works as midwife and herbalist for the other enslaved people on a plantation in 19th century America. When Bean, a pale-skinned child with strangely dark eyes is born, Rue is horrified: ‘She felt then that she knew him for … More Conjure Women – a review
Unprotected by Sophie Jonas-Hill is a novel dedicated to ‘all those who have suffered loss and miscarriage, and keep on fighting’. But it’s not a misery-fest. Far from it. Lydia is a tattooist and, when her long-term relationship breaks down after a series of miscarriages, she’s both hurt and supremely angry. After a drunk night … More Unprotected: a review
In this beautiful, very accomplished first poetry collection, Amanda Huggins demonstrates a range of concerns, from growing up to love and loss all interlinked by the sea. Whatever theme she is examining her language is precise and evocative with no word wasted. Out Chasing Boys focuses on that innocent time of adolescence when ‘we revered … More The Collective Nouns for Birds: a review
Ali Thurm 