BOOK lovers are a stubborn and peculiar breed. They will determinedly push on to the very last word despite all the negative vibes they are receiving from their current choice of reading matter. They plough relentlessly forward, deaf to a background noise about plot, characters, writing style, inconsistencies, typos (polite word for spelling errors), plodding dialogue, factual errors or a variety of other aggravations. Well, most do. After all, it’s only natural to wonder how does it all end, regardless of all that has gone before. Those final few pages where all the loose ends are neatly gathered in come… Continue reading
NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen… 
A BOOK obtained by an accidental encounter; a volume I had never considered in the several years since it first appeared in 2017 and won the Costa First Novel Award. Not even as an impulse buy while browsing bookshop shelves. This intriguing, mesmerising and continually delightful tale was plucked from… 
FAME is a wonderful thing; it overrides ability in so many fields of endeavour. But nowhere more so than in the world of publishing. There the principle is simple: names sell. Celebrity is everything. Much to the chagrin of authors who have spent years honing their craft. Facebook “likes”, Instagram… 