Our Life in the Forest, by Marie Darrieussecq, is an experimental future dystopian novel for those who loved The End We Start From. A future where the lucky ones have a ‘half’, an identical body lying in storage from which they can harvest spare body parts as needed. Less fortunate humans have a ‘jar’, just […]
literary fiction
How To Be Perfect, rural idealism and time travel – Story Addict Podcast
In this episode of Story Addict I have TWO new releases for you plus one of my all-time favourite speculative fiction novels, The Time Traveller’s Wife. Plus I’ll discuss the question everyone seems to be asking at the moment – have our kids forgotten how to read ‘properly’? Listen to Season 1, Episode 2 Listen here […]
Book review: A Superior Spectre, by Angela Meyer
A Superior Spectre, by Angela Meyer, is based on a fascinating premise of time travel by haunting. Leonora is a fabulously strong 1860s character. Raised by her father in the Scottish Highlands after her mother dies in Edinburgh, she wants nothing more than to tend to the animals and crops. Then the local laird takes […]
We See the Stars by Kate van Hooft – the haunting unreality of childhood trauma
We See the Stars, by Kate van Hooft is a hauntingly beautiful debut from a gifted storyteller about one traumatised child’s attempt to make sense of his world. I have a clear memory of flying as a child. It was in the backyard of my Nan and Pop’s house and I was alone. I took […]
How to be a writer when you don’t want to write literary fiction
I’ve done pretty much every kind of writing there is, apart from features writing and underwriting. My current day job is digital strategy and web content writing – I translate complex technical concepts into plain English and make sure people can find them when they search in Google. I’ve also done copywriting, article writing, fiction […]
Book review: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy
I’m doing something a wee bit unusual today. I’m writing a review for half a book. Specifically, I’m writing a glowing review of the first half of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy. I can’t write a review of the second half because I did not read it. I did not read it […]