Isabel Ashdown returns to the Isle of Wight* for the setting of her latest novel, Little Sister, and rather appropriately for this dark tale of sibling rivalry and lost children she’s gone over to slightly wilder West Wight. (I lived on this side of the island for nine years before leaving to go to university, so I was excited to read…
Harriet Cummings’ debut novel We All Begin As Strangers is inspired by real events that took place in her home town the year she was born. In providing her own take on the mysterious intruder ‘The Fox’, she weaves a contemporary tale of the loneliness, suspicion, gossip and misunderstandings rife even in the smallest community. It’s 1984, and summer is scorching the…
Katherine Stansfield’s Falling Creatures is a wonderfully evocative historical novel and a reimagining of a real murder that took place on Bodmin Moor, one now firmly entrenched within local folklore. Cornwall, 1844. On a lonely moorland farm not far from Jamaica Inn, farmhand Shilly finds love in the arms of Charlotte Dymond. But Charlotte has many secrets, possessing powers that…
I’m excited to welcome New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg today as part of the blog tour for her latest novel, All Grown Up. Here’s who and what it’s all about: Andrea is a single, childless 39-year-old woman who tries to navigate family, sexuality, friendships and a career she never wanted, but battles with thoughts and desires that few…
Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley reminds me of adventure books I read as a child, but is the modern-day, grown-up version of them. It’s exactly the kind of book I search for on bookshop shelves. Which probably explains why I loved it. After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter Loo…
Last Thursday, I reviewed A Life Between Us. Today I’m delighted to welcome Louise Walters to the Nut Press to talk about her second novel. Louise, I’m interested in where A Life Between Us began for you. I started with one character, Tina (called Nell initially), and I knew she was missing somebody important. Everything else followed on from that. Do…
If, as I did, you really enjoyed Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, you’ll be happy to know that Louise Walters’ second book is out now. (And if you’ve yet to discover her, I’ll happily add to your TBR.) Here’s what the so very aptly-titled A Life Between Us is about: Tina’s sister Meg died in a childhood accident, but for almost forty years Tina…
The lawyer in me was attracted to the title and striking cover of Summary Justice, which led me to expect this to be about a legal battle against all the odds, even though unfamiliar with the author’s name. (Which as it turns out is a pen name.) Once I read the following blurb, I knew I had to read it. The…
If you’re looking for a strong central character and are tired of female characters being portrayed as helpless, always waiting on a man to save or rescue them rather than doing the job themselves, then Shannon Kirk’s The Method might be the book for you. You’re sixteen, you’re pregnant and you’ve been kidnapped. If you’re anyone else you give in,…