Leila Aboulela’s latest novel is an intriguing and moving story of displacement, love and compassion. What would it be like to give up everything and everyone you know and be suddenly taken to a completely alien culture? This question is subtly echoed in each linked story – whether it is to be transported to the … More The Kindness of Enemies
Emma Claire Sweeney’s debut novel from Legend Press is a heart-warming story about love and loss. Inspired by her sister, Lou who has cerebral palsy and autism, it is a deeply moving story that challenges misconceptions and stereotypes about learning disabilities. Nearing eighty, Maeve runs Sea View Lodge in Morecambe where staff and guests share … More Owl Song at Dawn
Richard Scott’s debut collection from The Rialto is the ninth in their series of Bridge Pamphlets designed to cross the gap between magasine and book publication for new writers. It is a beautifully produced pamphlet in cream and what I would describe as Germolene pink – appropriate for a collection of poems called Wound. The cover is a … More Wound
A warm, funny autobiographical novel from Urbane Publications. Hugely romantic. Larger than life and twice as naughty. Simon Wan, half Chinese, half white British is a kind of male Bridget Jones, if Bridget Jones was a skateboarding, wannabee pop star, dressed in outrageous clothes, swearing and taking drugs and drinking at raves. Simon is desperate to … More Love & a dozen roast potatoes
A gentle, slow-paced novel – the perfect antidote to many contemporary novels, and a great advert for the hidden beauties of Suffolk churches. The Huntingfield Paintress is a fictionalised account of the life and work of Mildred Holland, the adventurous and determined wife of the vicar of St. Mary’s, a tiny church in one of the … More The Huntingfield Paintress
This week I’ve sent a second draft of my work in progress, Jacob’s Ladder to my agent. She’s kindly (bravely?) agreed to read what I’ve got so far. She’s going on holiday for a week so luckily will not be too quick to respond. I need a break! So now I have a gap, a strange hiatus. … More Mind the gap
As an eight year old on holiday in Yorkshire I remember being wrenched from play to go on trips to York or Fountains Abbey, when all I wanted to do was to stay in that world of ‘let’s pretend’, where everything was open-ended and grew organically until it filled the whole day. Writing a novel is … More Short story
As a Goodreads giveaway winner I was excited to receive a copy of Polly Samson’s The Kindness published by Bloomsbury last year and in paperback 2016. On the cover Jojo Moyes calls it as ‘A dark, sexy little masterpiece’ and I absolutely agree. A very dark and sensuous tale of loss, love and betrayal, The Kindness … More The Kindness review
I’ve just finished As if I were a river, a debut novel by Amanda Saint @saintlywriter. I was sent a review copy by Urbane publications urbanepublications.com, a relatively new publisher led by Matthew Smithfocussing on developing new author voices, and publishing fiction and non-fiction … that YOU want to read. This carefully-plotted page turner had me … More As if I were a river
Last week after a long weekend in Paris, it was a relief to reach the Gare du Nord having dragged and wrestled my small (but somehow weighty) suitcase across the city in a fog of dizziness and fever, only to have to repeat the whole process again at St Pancras, like a latter day Sisyphus. Struck down by this … More Illness and infancy
Ali Thurm 