Richard Roper’s debut novel, Something to Live For, is a surprisingly endearing, funny and moving story about loneliness and the people who fall through the cracks in their own lives. Sometimes you have to risk everything to find your something… All Andrew wants is to be normal. He has the perfect wife and 2.4 children waiting at home for him after…
Daniel Cole’s debut novel, Ragdoll, intrigued me because it had not one but multiple victims, and I thought I’d enjoy seeing what the connections between them all were, that is, beyond the stitching that loosely connects the initial six. Here’s what the blurb says: A body is discovered with the dismembered parts of six victims stitched together, nicknamed by the press…
For a psychological thriller, Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell is different enough to help it stand out in an increasingly crowded genre. What appealed to me about it in particular is that its about the two survivors of a relatively short-term crime, who tell their stories in alternating chapters throughout the book, but we first meet up with them years after the event…
Joanne Harris is one author whose books I always buy when they come out, so today I’m thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour for the new edition of Runemarks, her fantastical tale of magic, adventure and Norse mythology. It’s been re-edited, and comes with a new introduction and a gorgeous cover by Andreas Preis, who also designed The…
Thanks to an open book club event run by Book-ish in Crickhowell earlier this year, I read Katherine Webb’s The English Girl when it came out in hardback. Actually, thinking about it, a friend lent me their proof copy because I was so eager to read it before the event, and meeting Katherine. It was the first book of hers…
Ivor Punch is the (former) police sergeant of a small island off the west coast of Scotland. He’s a man of few (spoken) words but a prolific letter writer, which he liberally punctuates with the f-bomb. (Used more as an outburst than swearing, so it didn’t offend this reader.) His letters are funny, revealing, poignant, matter of fact and heartfelt…
There are three things I look forward to at this time of year: the way blossom drifts like snow in kerbsides, that the Hay Festival is on later this month and that a new Liz Fenwick novel will be out. In fact, it is out. Today. Under a Cornish Sky is Liz’s fourth novel and I was fortunate enough to snag…
When my family moved back to the UK from Germany, shortly before my baby brother was born, my Welsh father and Scottish mother couldn’t agree where to live, so they looked to England as a compromise solution. And (for any English people reading this) a very fine compromise it was, too! Dad had always loved Cornwall and would have loved to have…