STORYWORLD

As we head into the holidays and possibly into a mad frenzy of shopping, cooking, eating and entertaining, it's a good idea to make some quiet time for reflection and most importantly of all—for reading. This year I've spent a whole lot of my time working on the revisions of my novel THE SAVAGE INSTINCT, which is to be republished in a second, very different edition 2020 by Inkshares, but I've also enjoyed reviewing books for NetGalley and Legend Press, a UK publisher. I've shared below some of my great reads of the year. Hope you can find the time to read one or buy as a gift for friends or family. Happy holidays! FIVE WIVES by Joan Thomas Local Winnipeg writer, Joan Thomas was the most deserving winner of this year's Governor General's Award for fiction with her novel FIVE WIVES, a fictionalized account of the lives of the real women left behind when their husbands were killed in a misguided attempt to contact the Waorani, a reclusive tribe from t

Ruth Dugdall’s new novel, The Sacrificial Man, the second instalment in her Cate Austin series is definitely not a book for the more squeamish reader. Dark in tone and containing grotesque and disturbing details, it tackles the very sensitive question of whether assisting a person to commit suicide is a crime or an act of love. This particular case, however, deals with a very different situation where the main character, Alice Mariani, a brilliant literature professor, obsessed with the Romantic poets, believes it’s an act of ultimate passion. Cate Austin, probation officer, is called in to question Alice in order to recommend a suitable sentence, and discover why she agreed to help Dave, a young man suffering no apparent fatal illness, to die. As she tries to chip at Alice's icy exterior, she begins to dig deeper into the past of this enigmatic, beautiful though rather unlikeable woman and discovers how a painful, early childhood has shaped her into a lonely, unreac

I'm delighted to be reviewing two books this week: OVERDRAWN a thought-provoking dystopia by N.J Crosskey and VIOLET a chilling and suspenseful horror story by Scott Thomas. Overdrawn by NJ Crosskey is an original and compelling dystopia, based on a chilling but plausible premise. The novel is set in a near-future UK, where austerity is the rule, national health care is extinct and aging has become such an inconvenience that euthanasia is viewed as a patriotic act. It's a hostile, uncaring place where the length of your life is determined by how much you can afford to pay to keep yourself alive,  The story follows two main characters: senior citizen, Henry whose beloved wife is gradually slipping away from him due to the ravages of dementia, and Kaitlyn, a young woman who sacrifices everything to keep her comatose brother’s life support switched on.   The two characters meet and form an unusual business alliance that they hope will produce the funds to keep their l

I'm happy to review another book sent to me by Legend Press . This week it's Grace's Table by Australian author, Sally Piper . Grace’s Table  Set in Australia, this wonderfully insightful debut novel is set over the course of one day in the main character, Grace’s life. But it’s no ordinary day; it’s her 70 th birthday lunch. Over the course of the day, Grace works alongside her daughter, Susan, preparing the meal and slipping into memories about her past, mostly triggered by mundane tasks such as shelling peas or mixing gravy.  Soon a gentle story metamorphoses into a painful study of Grace’s own difficult childhood, a tragic teenage love affair, a loveless marriage and finally a family traumatized by grief, regret and resentment, resulting from a shocking event in their past that reverberates through the following decades. Soon it’s clear that Grace is not just cooking a birthday meal, she’s fighting to keep her family from falling apart and drifting

A huge thanks to Legend Press who sent me a copy of Carolyn O' Brien's touching novel, The Song of Peterloo, to review. I'm delighted to be a part of the blog tour. This compelling historical novel centres around The Peterloo Massacre, a real life tragedy of 1819, when close to 100,000 peaceable protesters gathered on St. Peter’s Field, Manchester to campaign for parliamentary reform. Nervous magistrates watched from a nearby window, then decided to read the ”Riot Act,” calling on up to 600 armed soldiers from the Manchester Yeomanry to break up the meeting, with the intention of arresting the main speaker, Henry Hunt. The soldiers, brandishing sharpened sabers, rode in among the crowd. Hundreds were injured and dozens killed, including women and children. Carolyn O’Brien wisely uses the voice of Nancy Kay, a young mill worker, to tell most of the story, giving a distant historical event a much more human feel. Nancy lives with her young son, Walter and ailing m

This was my April! Two weeks in Spain and Portugal travelling across gorgeous, sunny Andalusia, followed by the pristine beaches of the Algarve for the last few glorious days. Then two weeks in England mostly staying in the north-west and north-east and finishing it all with a family reunion, a moving ceremony to commemorate the coal miners of Hetton, and the chance to be a real life Pitman's Daughter along with many other relatives and friends who are also pitmen's daughters! Here's a little journey through some of the places we visited. Beautiful Malaga harbour. You can get a ferry from Malaga to Tangier, Morocco that takes you about 5 hours to get there .       Downtown Malaga is incredibly beautiful. What better way to spend an evening than dinner and wine  beside the stunning cathedral, nicknamed "La Manquita" (the one-armed woman!) due to its missing second tower. Spicy shrimp piri piri and grilled anchovies with plenty of olives on a wa

Happy New Year to everyone and hope you're all looking forward to a great year of reading! I thought I'd start the year off on a lighter note with some book recommendations that will get you in a happy mood to face the rest of the winter. After a steady diet of psychological suspense, I felt the need to switch things up and find some humour out there. Hope you find something here that will appeal. ONE GOOD TURN by Kate Atkinson Kate Atkinson writes with the kind of sly, ironic wit that makes the characters burst out from the pages of this complicated and multi-voiced crime novel. This is the second book that features ex-army, ex-cop, ex-private eye and newly retired millionaire, Jackson Brodie, who naturally can't stay away from the world of crime. When he travels to the Edinburgh Festival with his actress girlfriend, he witnesses a violent road rage incident in which a timid writer of "jolly English" crime novels becomes an unlikely hero by throwing his