My dad was ten-and-a-half when the Second World War broke out.

And he was 12-or-thereabouts when his father took him out in the fields near their Warwickshire home and taught him how to load and fire the old rifle hidden behind a coat in the hallway.

The lesson was just in case Grandad wasn’t home when the Germans invaded and Dad needed to defend his mother and sisters and younger brother against the enemy.  Continue reading →

Maggie Thatcher was newly installed as the UK’s first female Prime Minister the last time I read Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole.

She took office in May 1979 in the middle of a recession and in the wake of Labour’s Winter of Discontent.

And, as she entered the door of No 10 Downing Street for the first time as premier, she spoke some lines from a prayer by St Francis of Assisi.

‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth…where there is despair, may we bring hope.’ Continue reading →

One of the joys of belonging to a book group – besides talking books with friends – is discovering literary gems that might have passed you by otherwise.

My book group has been going for almost six years.

Time enough to have read some stunning books – although we don’t always agree about what makes a good read.

But that’s the fun of being in a book club, isn’t it? Continue reading →

Former magazine journalist Karen King, whose writing career started on the iconic teen magazine Jackie, is hoping for a perfect summer with the re-publication of her debut Young Adult novel, Perfect Summer.

The book, a futuristic thriller set in a society obsessed with beauty and perfection where it is a crime to be disabled, was runner-up in the Red Telephone Books YA novel competition in 2011.

Now re-published by Accent Press, Perfect Summer is the story of what happens when 15-year-old Morgan’s younger brother Josh is kidnapped. Continue reading →

Let me begin by listing the things I like about Bad to the Bone, first in a new crime thriller series by Tony J.Forder.

One: it’s well written.

Very well written.

Forder is clearly a writer, who cares about words and getting them in the right order and using the right word in the right place.

And he’s good at painting word pictures too. Continue reading →

It’s a long time ago but I can’t now remember whether I met Jane Eyre before or after being introduced to Lizzie Bennett.

One thing’s for sure though: both were the first book women of my acquaintance who considered themselves the equal of any man.

In fact, both thought themselves far superior to some of the men they knew.

Even on the cusp of the 70s that was a revolutionary idea so goodness knows what the 19^th century reader must have thought. Continue reading →

Whet your appetite for The Book of Air, a new post-apocalyptic fantasy, by Joe Treasure.

A virus is wiping out most of the human population. In this passage, Jason is describing his departure from London. He tells his story to his dead wife, Caroline, or Caro for short.  

We hit a road block near Chiswick. Hard men in gas masks, playing at soldiers, keeping the neighbourhood clean. Waving their guns at microbes. The real soldiers had buggered off weeks before. Or keeled over. Same all over London, same everywhere. Containment was the Continue reading →