Literary standards, like everything else, have changed a lot in the past century or so. Writers are not like crystal-gazers. They can fantasize and invent improbable futures, but in the end they can only write in, and of, the world as it is in their own times. And the world of the past is not …
Category: Books
Hogwarts #7#
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling Harry Potter Hogwarts House Editions I think I may have written previously that I am collecting these special editions of the Harry Potter novels for my two granddaughters. Although they are still too young to read them, I am happy to announce that the collection of …
Sisi
Looking back, I see that I wrote the following two critiques in 2014. Empress Elisabeth of Austria is a historical figure I very much enjoy reading (and writing) about and, indeed, since penning these articles, I have read a few other works in which she features, regrettably not all as good as Brigitte Hamann's biography. …
The Dark Side of the Fylfot
(A Short Extract #2) by Andrew G. Lockhart Gretl July, August and September were always busy months and that year they were more hectic than ever. All summer, my father and Roland were preoccupied with affairs on the farm. The crops had come under threat from unusually large numbers of rats that descended on us …
The Dark Side of the Fylfot
(A Short Extract #1) by Andrew G. Lockhart Gretl I awoke on a bed of straw. It was just past daybreak, and there was enough light for me to see I was in a peasant cottage. The woman who had befriended me the evening before was bending over me. She handed me a cup. Thinking …
Sistersong
by Lucy Holland ‘I am as light and am as dark, I am as birth and am as breath, I am as flesh and bone and brain, Look inside and know my name.’ Just as I was beginning to think no one writes stories like that any more, along comes Lucy Holland’s tale of war, …
The Tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu English translation by Arthur Waley ‘At the court of an emperor (he lived it matters not when) there was among the many gentlewomen of the Wardrobe and Chamber one, though she was not of very high rank was favored far beyond all the rest.’ For a reader in the West, The …
Sweet Entanglement
Sweet Entanglement, Book 2 of my Fields of Wine series is released today, and is available in both digital and paperback format from Amazon, and as a digital book only from Kobo, Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble, and Apple Books. I would love you to read it and tell me what you think in a review. …
Wine, Chocolate and Sex . . . #5#
Sweet Entanglement Today, I'm posting the final taster/teaser from Sweet Entanglement, my forthcoming novel. The narrator is once again Andy. Enjoy! "Something wakes me from a sound sleep. A noise from outside is my first thought, perhaps a nighthawk or a nocturnal animal foraging for food. I peer through half-closed eyelids. The room is in …
Wine, Chocolate and Sex . . . #4#
Sweet Entanglement Continuing my week of taster extracts from Sweet Entanglement, here is another short passage from Nicole's narrative. Nicole is back at university in Edinburgh . . . I hope you enjoy it! "We go back to the kitchen. I take the wine from the fridge and pour into two plastic tumblers from the …
