editor’s choice

  Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is a beautifully produced book, showcasing Sharon Blackie’s rather terrific tales. Drawing on global female folklore and mythology – from the familiar Snow Queen, immortalised by Hans Christian Andersen, to Croatia’s ‘she wolf’, with its similarities to the Celtic selkies, Slavic Baba Yaga, the creator-goddess turned … Continue readings →

  We love Tom Cox. He’s rapidly become a favourite author, his writing poignant, funny, entertaining. Like many, we first encountered him via his musings on the much missed The Bear and his other fabulous felines. His subject matter is wide-ranging, from music to witches, toads to his shouty dad. His latest book, Ring the … Continue readings →

Tags : leaping hares, Meet Tom Cox, Ralph, Ring the Hill, Robert Macfarlane, Shipley, The Bear, Tom Cox, Unbound, Underland

    Icon n. – person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.”     ‘ICON’ IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST OVER-USED WORDS in the English language. We apply it with little thought or reason. Yet there are a handful of truly iconic figures – the legend that is … Continue readings →

Tags : A–Z of crushes, all about my mother, icon, icons, Judy Garland, music, Susie Boyt, Virago

  On 23 June 1919, seven exceptional women gathered at 46 Dover Street in London’s Mayfair to do something that had never been done before – to create a professional organisation dedicated to campaigning for women’s rights. It was the official birth of the Women’s Engineering Society, the fruit of an idea conceived  several months … Continue readings →

Tags : feminism, feminist history, Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines, suffrage, women's history

  We’ve already waxed lyrical about the IWM’s republishing of four Second World War literary classics this month. By doing so, it’s giving voice to men and women who wrote so beautifully and poignantly about a great, brutal war. David Piper’s extraordinary Trial By Battle is the second book we’re reviewing and it is quite … Continue readings →

Tags : Alexander Baron, Anthony Quayle, David Piper, Eight Hours from England, Frank Kermode, From the City From the Plough, Imperial War Museum, India, IWM Classics, Trial by Fire, war poets, World War II

  Gosh, hats off to the Imperial War Museum for great publishing with the wartime classics series. We’ve already reviewed two of the four novels being republished by the IWM this month. Now, with great pleasure, we’ve become acquainted with Anthony Quayle’s very fine and highly entertaining adventure Eight Hours to England. Based on Quayle’s … Continue readings →

Tags : Alexander Baron, Alistair MacLean, Anthony Quayle, David Piper, editor's choice, film, Hitchcock, IWM, Second World War, war, wartime classics

  There’s a lovely moment In the Absence of Miracles, when Michael J. Malone’s protagonist is catching up with a childhood friend whom he hasn’t seen in an age, and the residual awkwardness that one quite often feels in such circumstances just falls away. ‘There we sat, with legs kicking the side. The years fell … Continue readings →

Tags : Crime Writers Association, In the Absence of Miracles, Karen Sullivan, Michael J. Malone, Orenda Books, psychological thriller, Scottish noir

  When I was reading Laura Thompson’s beautifully penned The Last Landlady, I was trying to think about why I love memoir and biography so much. What it is about these genres that so enthralls. And when they’re done well, they are enthralling, the writers weaving us into the subjects’ worlds so tightly that we’re … Continue readings →

Tags : biography, editor's choice, history, Laura Thompson, memoir, The Last Landlady, Unbound

  We learn about war from an early age. We’re taught about it in our classrooms, read about it in the beautiful, haunting poetry of the war poets – Sassoon, Owen, Jarrell. Yet now social media and our global village world mean our access to war is pretty much immediate and, we are, in many … Continue readings →

Tags : 80th anniversary Second World War, Alexander Baron, Anthony Quayle, D-Day, David Piper, Eight Hours from England, From the City From the Plough, IWM, Kathleen Hewitt, Plenty Under the Counter, Trial by Battle, war poets

  ‘There are people who think they understand a book just because they know how to read. I already told you that books are like mirrors: every person finds in them what they have in their own head. The problem is that you only discover what you have inside you when you read the right … Continue readings →

Tags : El libro savage, HopeRoad Publications, Juan Villoro, Lawrence Schimel, magic realism, Mexican authors, Mexican Updike, The Wild One, Villoro, YA

  Have you heard of kintsugi? Sydney says. Ila shakes her head. It’s the old Japanese art of repairing broken or chipped pottery. They use layers of lacquer, often with powdered gold. Instead of hiding the damage, it’s embraced. It’s treated as part of an object’s ongoing beauty. I love that, Ila says.”   Rachel … Continue readings →

Tags : Do Not Feed the Bear, editor's choice, Headline books, Rachel Elliott, Tinder Press

    ‘Very ancient buildings have a way of talking to you … So many secrets waiting to be uncovered.’ ‘I’ve always thought that, too,’ I say. ‘Actually, I’ve always talked to Ponden since I was little; it seems impolite not to.’ ” – Tru Heaton Jones discussing Ponden Hall with Marcus Ellis   Rowan … Continue readings →

Tags : Brontes, Gothic literature, the Gytrash, the Heaton family, Wuthering Heights, Yorkshire moors

    We’re utterly delighted to welcome wonderful Welsh–Canadian romantic-historical fiction writer Mary Balogh to The Literary Lounge. Described as the ‘superstar heir’ to the legacy of late, great Georgette Heyer, Mary is the recipient of numerous awards and has graced the New York Times bestseller list thirty-six times in her career thus far. Her … Continue readings →

Tags : Bedwyns, Canadian writer Mary Balogh, Frederica, Georgette Heyer, historical romantic fiction, Little Brown authors, Mary Balogh, Mary Balogh 2019, New York Times bestselling writers, Piatkus romantic fiction, Regency, Regency writer Mary Balogh, RNA, romantic fiction, RWA, Simply series, superstar heir to Georgette Heyer, The Literary Lounge, The Literary Lounge Q&As, Welsh-Canadian authors, Westcott series

  There’s a point early on in Paul Burston’s The Closer I Get when protagonist Tom goes to the police to report that he’s being harassed. The female detective who interviews him is astonished to hear that he’s been stalked for about a year and not reported it. Why?, she asks. I was embarrassed, he … Continue readings →

  I love it when I’m introduced to writers I’ve never read before, especially when I know they’re going to be new friends. That’s the case with Joseph Knox. The Sleepwalker, which is published this month by Doubleday, is the third outing for Detective Aidan Waits and yet it’s my introduction to him. I really … Continue readings →

Tags : Aidan Waits, Aidan Waits 3, British crime fiction, British noir, Doubleday, Joseph Knox, Manchester noir, The Sleepwalker