Here's a preview of the first chapter of my next novel, Infinite Stranger, which is being published this summer. On a snowy February morning in 1978, eighteen-year-old Leah Cavanagh meets Brother Matthew Haddon while on a retreat with her Catholic girls’ school. The four days she spends at Greystones Abbey in the wilds of North [...]
Generally speaking, I don’t like making sweeping statements. But I’m going to make one now. The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read. There. I’ve said it. And that’s coming from someone who has read lots and lots of books. I used to think it [...]
What makes a book a bloody good read ? Of course that’s a subjective question, but in the main I reckon it’s the result of a whole host of literary aspects that align in the right place at the right time for the right reader. It might be the tightly-knit thriller element that keeps you [...]
Coming to the end of a good novel is rather like coming to the end of a good relationship. I suppose the main difference is that a good novel remains good right until the end, whereas a good relationship ...? Hmm. Logic says that it can’t be ‘good’ anymore by that stage, otherwise it wouldn’t [...]
I could easily have written a post about twenty suggestions for gripping summer reading, or even thirty, but I thought it best to keep it short. Each of the novels listed below has been selected either because of its beautiful writing, its compelling storyline, or in some cases, both. So here you are then, my [...]
My guess is that there are quite a number of people out there who have secretly been enjoying lockdown. And who are now feeling a little saddened that things are gradually getting back to normal as restrictions ease and country after country slowly but surely prepares to return to normal life. Of course there are [...]
One difficult aspect about living in Kraków as a half-Pole, yet often feeling like an expatriate even after 20-plus years in this place, is that it’s hard to link up with other English-speaking book lovers such as myself. If I were back in Britain it would be easy. I’d probably be a member of two [...]
Wendy Skorupski 