When I’m approached to review a book a lot depends on the mood I’m in, and when an intern from SilverWood Books popped up offering a free copy of Cells by Harriet Grace, I was definitely in two minds. The subject matter – infertility – didn’t really grab me. Was I ready for an ‘issues’ … Continue reading Cells: self-published literary fiction
“A complex tale of love, truth, identity, self-discovery and betrayal which shuttles between Jamaica and London, from the turbulent 70s to the present day.” Jenni O’Connor’s description of her self-pub e-book is an excellent summing up. The heroine is Monique, a journalist of Jamaican descent who goes back to Jamaica for the funeral of a … Continue reading e-pub review: Reach for a Different Sun
Here are two books about travelling in Britain that couldn’t be more different, since one is a real life contemporary travelogue and the other is fiction set in the Plague Year of 1348. But I liked both of them a great deal and so I’m taking the opportunity to pair them up (so there!) I … Continue reading Company of Liars and Are We Nearly there Yet?
There’s a lot to be said for a catchy title. I mean, never having read a Western (oops, I’m forgetting All the Pretty Horses) and with a strong tendency to avoid cowboy films, what else would have made me pick up The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt except the desire to work out if it was … Continue reading The Sisters Brothers
This week I was delighted to read Emma Darwin’s post with advice on prologues, particularly as it confirmed my own somewhat jaundiced view that a prologue is more likely to hold-up proceedings that engage the reader, and even a good one is a risk, at least for a wannabe author. Then, lo, up popped an … Continue reading Warning: epilogues can damage your imagination
Ali Bacon, Author 