My father likes to tell a story about when he worked for a firm on Edinburgh’s George Street. He claims that every time an architectural-themed tour would pass under his window, he would lean out and bellow corrections at the poor sod mid-flow on the concept of Georgian facades. It […]
Writing is a way of life for Marian Dillon, author of Looking for Alex and The Lies Between Us. After publishing several stories for children and young adults, she completed an MA in Creative Writing and joined a writer’s group. Her first adult novel Looking for Alex was published in 2013 […]
The struggles of growing up, between mothers and teenage daughters, is excellently portrayed in Marian Dillon’s second adult novel The Lies Between Us. As with Looking for Alex, it takes the format of two parallel stories using flashbacks to let the past (from 1963, with mother Kathleen) catch up with […]
What is man? It’s a question that has haunted many philosophers as well as writers. For lack of a better answer, I’d like to think it is the very act of asking this question that defines us. Until only very recently, humanity’s tale has been concerned with the fates of men […]
Camping is not my thing. Although, I would like to visit the Somerset Glamping where Katie grew up in Sophie Kinsella’s latest novel My (Not So) Perfect Life! Not that she wants to be there. Her dream is to have a glamorous career in the fast-paced world of marketing in London. […]
I’ve always considered myself a post-modern guy – well, ever since I knew what it meant, anyway. And to its credit, this novel has forced me to reconsider my philosophical affiliation, and giving some serious thought to dropping the label altogether. Maybe I’m an old-fashioned romantic at heart after all. Vic […]
In this time of instant and universal email traffic, built-in grammar checkers, desktop publishing and online writing courses, do we ever stop and think just how writers got by in the olden days? Without having Wikipedia at their beck and call, or being able to drag their laptop to any […]
As a reader, it’s a peculiar sensation to wonder whether an author might be confiding in you. Like breaking the fourth wall, there is no escaping the notion that the soul behind the page is choosing to bear its skin, rewarding your special attention to what’s written between the lines. Of course, […]
There are writers who have an unrelenting and at times elemental relationship to storytelling; writers whose entire worlds are contained within a single sentence. Camilla Grudova’s debut collection of stories, The Doll’s Alphabet, captures this definitive way of storytelling in conjuring up an immediate, uncanny world. One that is gothic, […]
How far would you go for those you love? Arriving at an airport halfway across the globe – a last way station in a remote part of the world – Yasmin finds she would give, do or say anything to convince the authorities to go out looking for her husband Matt. He has gone missing after […]
