Linda Legters’ debut novel, Connected Underneath, is unusual in several respects. Its chief protagonist, Persephone, is a confused teenager whose life becomes even more complicated when her tattooing habit, which she pays for with sex, gets in the way of her love for her best friend, Krista. Meanwhile, Celeste, a wheelchair-bound young woman who lives…
Nancy Roman is a debut author whose book, Just What I Always Wanted is garnering 5 star reviews on Amazon. I’d put it in the category of what some of my British friends call Hen-lit – like Chick-lit but for smarter (because they’ve been around longer) women. It’s the story of a 50-year-old woman who…
I’ve recently been enjoying the books of Scottish author Catriona McPherson . Her first series was the Dandy Gilver mysteries, featuring an aristocratic lady sleuth in Scotland and the books take place after the First World War. Unlike Charles Todd (author of the Ian Routledge mystery novels) and Jacqueline Winspear (The Maisie Dobbs novels) which…
I read today on the BBC website that Sophie Hannah (poet and author of the Zailer and Waterhouse mystery series) has been commissioned by the author’s grandson to write a new crime novel based on Agatha Christie’s immortal (it seems) sleuth Hercule Poirot, probably best known from the television series starring David Suchet. From the…
I’ve just finished, rather reluctantly, the second episode of A.J.O’Connell’s trilogy of novellas (available as paper or eBook), which began with Beware the Hawk. The Eagle & the Arrow continues from where our last cliffhanger ended. But the point of view in this installment is that of Helen Roberts, director of the Resistance, the secret…
The Bookshop Band is a quirky British band who write songs about books which they play at author events in bookshops throughout England and Wales. For example, they’ve written songs about The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, by Alexandra Fuller, and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime walk by…
I first met Alice Mattison several years ago when she was part of a panel of writers doing their best to enlighten some neophyte writers (me included) on ways to improve our writing, specifically when we had plot issues. Even when we peppered her with questions she was very approachable and so are her novels….
Last Friday, the Guardian published this great inspiration for those of us with writer’s block. Even blocked, surely you can write a 140 character story, right? here’s the beginning of the article. You can see the whole thing here. We challenged well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly…
