Books featuring children don’t feature highly on The Novels I Have Read list, and books featuring children coping with grief are similarly low on my To Be Read pile.

So it was a surprise to enjoy two books which both have young girls as their central character and grief as the main premise.

And if it seems odd to enjoy books about grief, let me add that although there were moments of touching sadness in both novels, there was also wisdom and humour. It seems there is much to be learned about grief, love and life – by adults as well as by children. Continue reading →

What do scampi and chips, black coffee and a good pair of jeans have in common?

They’re just a few of author Rachel Amphlett’s favourite things.

Amphlett, whose new thriller Hell to Pay, the latest in the Detective Kay Hunter series, will be published on November 16, explains here why she loves a good cup of coffee and always makes a beeline for her favourite seafood dinner when she visits the UK.  Continue reading →

It’s not often a book comes along where people, place and plot are so intertwined that one doesn’t work without the other.

Or one that demands to be read to crashing drums and flashing lights.

But then if you came home to find your husband with his face between the long, silky legs of another woman, you’d make a bit of a song and dance about it too.

Especially if you’d only put clean sheets on the bed the day before.  Continue reading →

It’s always a little sad to discover a new author after he or she has died.

Even more sad when the author is just 52 and has only two other books to her name.

Of course, there’s the sympathy one feels as one woman to another one feels for anyone who dies so young.

But, there’s also the rather selfish sorrow that there will be no more stories from a writer whose work has become synonymous with Yorkshire. Continue reading →