I’ve been lucky enough to have been sent a copy of Writer’s London by Carrie Kania and Alan Oliver, and what a pleasure it’s been leafing through it during lockdown. Both the authors are Londoners, one by adoption via New York, and a love of the city, of writing and writers, permeates the pages. It’s arranged by district, with the authors who lived or who are associated with areas popping up, almost to say hello to us, near the streets…
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I was pleased to see in the Guardian today that crafting hobbies like knitting and sewing have soared in popularity during the lockdown. The craft beating all the others hand down, however, was my…
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Why is it that when you’ve apparently got all the time in the world, everything takes four times as long as normal to do? When I was sent a copy of My Life in…
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It’s such a pleasure in these lockdown days to introduce you to a fab new author – Adriana Barros. Her first YA (young adult) fantasy book, The Magical Life of Lola Bloom, will be…
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It’s such a pleasure to have the fabulous Rosie Travers on my blog today. Her books, Theatre of Dreams and Your Secret’s Safe With Me, are delicious slices of escapism and, if you haven’t…
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Sometimes a book comes along that you didn’t quite know you had to read – until you did. Catherine Fearns’ Reprobation was like that for me, a heady mix of Heavy Metal, religious symbolism,…
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I’m very glad to be hosting fellow crime author Alex Macbeth on my blog today. Alex’s gripping thriller, Red Die, is set in Mozambique and has been widely praised for its sense of place.…
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I’m very glad today to be able to welcome author Val Penny back to my blog. Val’s Edinburgh-based murder mystery series, starring Detective Inspector Hunter Wilson, has been compared with the work of Ian…
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It seems like a world away now but it was only about three weeks ago that I squeezed into a little temporary theatre in Webbs Road, Clapham with loads of friends. We were all…
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By accident, I saw two brilliant films back-to-back last week. The first was Queen and Slim, which I’d not heard much about and which didn’t seem to have been getting rave reviews. I wasn’t…