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  Early on in Sarah Henstra’s The Red Word, protagonist Karen wakes up in ‘someone’s backyard’, wearing ‘boxer shorts, one turquoise jelly sandal’ and ‘no bra’. She tells Steph, the woman who finds her, that she’s had sex. ‘On purpose?’ Steph asks. ‘There was a frat party,’ she responds. The party was at GBC (Gamma … Continue readings →

  Tim Lott’s new novel, When We Were Rich, published today by Scribner, revisits the main characters of Whitbread-winner White City Blue. Opening just before the Millennium, in Blair’s Britain, we are reunited with Frankie Blue and old mates Nodge and Colin, with Diamond Tony lurking in the background. It ends in 2008, when the … Continue readings →

  We’re far too big for Italy. Big and white and blond, we barely fit around the table at the restaurant that evening. The furniture and interiors have been designed with trim little Italians in mind, not Dad and Håkon, both almost six feet four inches tall; not for such long arms and legs; not … Continue readings →

  Best-selling author Ali McNamara takes us away on deliciously entertaining adventures in her novels. In Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay, her latest book, we follow single mother Amelia Harris and her young son Charlie as they embark on a veritable rags-to-riches journey, from borderline poverty to life in a medieval castle on the … Continue readings →

Tags : Ali MacNamara, Ali McNamara, Brown fiction, Chestford Castle, Jilly Cooper, Joanna Trollope, Little, Northumberland castles, Rainbow Bay, romantic fiction, Secrets and Seashells at at Rainbow Bay, Sphere fiction, women's fiction

    Gordon Kerr’s new novel, The Partisan Heart, utilises the dual timeline and Second World War setting, both so popular at the moment. Moving between the war-torn northern Italy of 1944 and London and Italy of the late 1990s, the book is part thriller, part historical drama. The ‘now’ and ‘then’ intersect in the … Continue readings →

Tags : dual timeline novels, espionage, Gordon Kerr, Italian Alps set books, Italian Resistance, Muswell Hill Press, northern Italy, reading on location Italy, Resisance, Second World War, The Partisan Heart, thriller, war thriller

  We’re delighted to welcome writer CHARLIE LAIDLAW to The Literary Lounge. The author of two books, Charlie publishes his third, The Space Between Time, this month with Accent Press.     First of all, Charlie, thank you so much for joining us and for taking the time to answer our questions.     LS: … Continue readings →

Tags : Charles Gray, Charles Gray Charlie Laidlaw, Charlie Laidlaw, Kate Okello, Scottish authors, The Literary Lounge Q&A, The Literary Shed's The Literary Lounge, The Space Between Time, TS Eliot Four Quartets

  Rough Magic is the kind of book I devoured as a child, a rip-roaring, triumph-against-adversity adventure, set in a faraway, exotic locale, told by the real-life hero, who usually, 99 per cent of the time, was male. In this case, the hero of the story is actually a heroine … and, God, ain’t that … Continue readings →

Tags : 000 km Mongolian horse race, 1, 13th-century Mongol history, adventure travel, Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan's postal system, global horse races, Lara Prior-Palmer, Moghul Empire, Moghuls, Mongol Derby, Mongol Empire, Mongol Horse Stations, Mongolia, Rough Magic, Rough Magic Riding the World's Wildest Horse Race, travel writing, women travel writers

  We read Felicity McLean’s very filmic debut novel, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, with Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads playing in the background. It somehow seemed fitting, as did Portishead’s Dummy, which followed. Set in a fictional rural location near Sydney, the novel centres on the disappearance of three sisters, Hannah, Cordelia and Ruth … Continue readings →

Tags : Australian set fiction, Felicity McLean, Lindy Chamberlain case, Picnic at Hanging Rock, reading on location, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, The Virgin Suicides

  I recently reread Elizabeth Smart’s classic By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, which I first devoured as an eager teen and have come back to many times since. It resonated then, the language so beautiful, the emotion so raw. It still rates as one of my top books about love – … Continue readings →

Tags : books about love, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Canadian authors, Canadian poet Elizabeth Smart, Canadian women authors, Elizabeth Smart, Elizabeth Smart and George Barker, great books about love, poet George Barker, prose poetry

  The wonderful thing about historical memoir is that quite often key events are brought to our attention which make us realise how far we’ve come and yet how far we still have to go. Elaine M. Chamber’s This Queer Angel, detailing her very personal fight for sexual equality in the armed forces, is one … Continue readings →

Tags : armed forces' history, decriminalisation of homosexuality, Elaine Chambers, Elaine M. Chambers, gay history, key events gay history, lesbian military history, LGBT, LGBT+ military history, military history, non-heteronormative history, Rank Outsiders, This Queer Angel, Unbound

  Jodie Jackson’s You Are What You Read: Why Changing Your Media Diet Can Change the World is what all good non-fiction should be – exciting, challenging and perceptive. That said, we are Jackson’s readership. The people who’ve stopped reading newspapers, watching the news, even watching terrestrial television because we’re irritated with the way in … Continue readings →

Tags : balanced news, don't believe everything you read, intelligent news, Jodie Jackson, negative news, news cycles, questioning the news, Stephen Pinker, You Are What You Read

  We do love a good storyteller and international bestselling writer Victoria Hislop is certainly that. From the days of highly acclaimed The Island, Hislop has captivated with her well-researched, historically based tomes. Those Who Are Loved, her latest offering which is published today, continues this trend. The frame for the book is an elderly … Continue readings →

Tags : Athens 1939–45, Greece, Greece communism, Greek civil war, Greek during World War 2, Greek literature, islands of exile, Makronisos, resistance, The Island Victoria Hislop, Trikeri, Victoria Hislop, women's fiction

  ‘Let him be an example. My Frank. Of how to live best, and to stop all this death. Let them put down their knives, stop being ruled by fear. They are all so fearful, that’s why my boy died. Not because another kid was showing off, as the papers said, not muscles being flexed. … Continue readings →

Tags : Bath writers, Best 2019 crime fiction, Brexit London crime fiction, crime fiction, Di Marnie Rome, London crime fiction, Marnie Rome, Marnie Rome series, Never Be Broken, procedural crime fiction, RIchard and Judy Book Club, Sarah Hilary, Theakston Crime Fiction of the Year

  A beautifully nuanced novel, Permission by Saskia Vogel is a sometimes challenging and often lyrical exploration of longing, loneliness and loss. Following her father’s tragic death, LA actress Echo struggles to deal with her bereavement – ‘the gape of loss’. Cast adrift, she embarks on a series of meaningless encounters with men, before meeting … Continue readings →

Tags : alternative lifestyle, BDSM, bereavement, community, debut 2019 novelists, dialogue books, grief, Hollywood, LA-based books, loss, permission, saskia vogel

  ‘Have you ever wondered how long it takes to dig a grave? Wonder no longer. It takes an age …”   There’s nothing better than a good opener and, in this, debut novelist Catherine Steadman doesn’t disappoint, drawing us in from the very first line of the highly acclaimed Something in the Water. (Who … Continue readings →

Tags : books to screen, Bora Bora, Breathless, Burnham Market, Catherine Steadman, Catherine Steadman actress, crime fiction, Downton Abbey, holiday reads, London, Midsommer Murders, North Norfolk, reading on location, Reese Witherspoon, Reese Witherspoon book club, Simon & Schuster, Some Thing in the Water, Something in the water, Switzerland