‘There She Blows’ – Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

Well, that was some read. I read quickly (it’s my only useful skill) and this has taken me weeks. It’s on a par with Richardson’s Clarissa in terms of the stamina required, but I’m glad I’ve read it - and unlike my experience with Richardson’s epic tome, I wasn’t being whipped along by the demands …

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Lisa Ko’s The Leavers – Blog Tour Post

wKo’s The Leavers has rightly gained plaudits all over the shop; it is a moving exploration of identity and belonging in a world which is both shrinking, thanks to myriad forms of communication, and in which it is still possible to lose someone for years. In the central relationship Ko examines the effect of a …

An Interview With … Julie Ryan

Today I'm chatting to Julie Ryan, whose latest book, Pandora’s Prophecy, is published by Amazon. Thanks for dropping by, Julie. Tell us a little about your writing to date. I write romantic mysteries set in Greece. They have been described as ‘not quite thrillers and not quite chick-lit.’ I try to show the other side …

Allie Cresswell’s Game Show – Blog Tour Post

ese Allie Cresswell’s Game Show, first published in 2013, is a terrifying take on power and the speed with which social constraints and personal responsibility might be abandoned if the rules are removed. The setting of the novel in 1992 is significant. We hadn’t yet seen the rise of ‘Reality TV’ in the form of …

Madam Tulip and the Bones of Chance – Review and a conversation with David Ahern

David Ahern's Derry O'Donnell, together with her fortune-reading alter-ego Madam Tulip, is now on her third adventure, this time in the highlands of Scotland. I was very happy to see that familiar characters are back - there's much to love about Derry's opportunistic father, this time embroiled in buying an ancestral home, and Derry's ever …

An Interview with … Pam Lecky

Today's guest is Pam Lecky, author of The Bowes Inheritance. Her latest novel, No Stone Unturned, is published later this year. Pam has recently been signed by literary agents Herdman & Swainson, and her anthology of short stories, Past Imperfect, will be published on the 6th April. These stories feature settings as diverse as WW1-era Dublin, …

Blogging – the first eight months, or ‘What I’ve learned So Far…’

About eight months ago (the exact date is vague because I prevaricated, unsure about how the hell to actually start) I wrote my first blog post, a review of Maggie O'Farrell's This Must Be The Place. The book itself wasn't significant (although I enjoyed it a good deal) but I guess the timing was. I'd been …