Broken Ground by Val McDermid A Review Published in 2018, Broken Ground is a police procedural set in Edinburgh and the Highlands of Scotland. Thus I couldn't resist delving into it. ' "I need you over here. This body that's supposed to have been in the ground for seventy-four years? He's wearing a pair of …
Frustration
I haven't been getting out much lately, apart from the permitted exercise and an occasional visit to the supermarket or pharmacist. We have managed to get most of our shopping needs delivered. One thing I miss most about this lockdown is being able to go browsing in the local bookshop. Bookshops seem to be all …
Tidelands
by Philippa Gregory A Review 'This was the walking night for the dead, this night and their saints' days; but she did not think her drunken violent husband had been under the care of any particular saint.' Alinor Reekie scratches out a living for herself and her children Rob and Alys in the marshlands of …
Carry On Dreaming
Tolkien and the Future of Epic Fantasy 'Then what are You, having no Chaos found To make a World, or any such least Ground? But your Creating Fancy, thought it fit To make your World of Nothing, but pure Wit. Your Blazing-World, beyond the Stars mounts higher, Enlightens all with a Cœlestial Fier. [William, 1st …
The Five
by Hallie Rubenhold The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper 'The victims of Jack the Ripper were never "just prostitues"; they were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and lovers. They were women. They were human beings, and surely that, in itself, is enough.' During the late summer of 1888, death stalked the …
Tracing the Past
by Andrew G. Lockhart (taken from Tapestry, the Story of a Family) A few miles to the west of Edinburgh, and not far from the Firth of Forth, lies the village of Abercorn. It was a hamlet as early as the seventh century and is mentioned in the annals of the Venerable Bede, the Northumbrian …
The Confession
by Jessie Burton A Review 'I was fourteen when I killed my mother.' Elise Morceau is twenty years old in 1980 when she meets thirty-five-year-old novelist Constance Holden in London. They embark on a love affair. One of Constance's novels is being made into a movie and Constance takes Elise with her to Hollywood to …
Just published …. [3]
Here is a third extract from my book Dark Inheritance: A Mediaeval Fantasy - 'Saxony, more than forty years later ... GRETL The Woman with the Sword I was seven years old when the Black Death came to Brunswick. We heard of it in March, the day of my accident, the day I tried to …
Just Published …. [2]
Dark Inheritance A Mediaeval Fantasy Today, I am posting another extract from my novel. "She prods the bundle with her finger. To her astonishment it moves. With beating heart, Tessera pulls aside some folds of cloth and finds herself looking into the face of an infant of no more than a few months old. Its …
Just published . . .
Today, I can announce the publication this week of my novel entitled Dark Inheritance: a Mediaeval Fantasy. The setting for the book is Europe in the years around 1348, when the world is ravaged by the Black Death. Medical science is almost non-existent. Instead, people believe that God visits these plagues on humanity because of …
