‘The Time by the Sea’ by Ronald Blythe

The gist of this formed my monthly post on the Association of Christian Writers website, More Than Writers, but it is essentially a book review of a very unusual author, writing about other authors, musicians and artists, and life in Suffolk (England).  The Time by the Sea is an account of how, in the nineteen fifties,...

Celebrating International Women’s Day 2018!

Thank you, Bronte’s Page Turners, for pin-pointing such wonderful source material for us hopeful historical novelists.

Brontë's Page Turners

Following our posts to celebrate International Women’s Day in 2016 and 2017, we’re back again for #IWD2018 with a bounty of books to explore woman’s place in the world.

Set in Rosenau, an isolated alpine farming community in Austria, Homestead by Rosina Lippi begins with a mysterious love letter – its intended recipient potentially being any one of a number of local ladies – and proceeds to recount the life of several village women, through short stories set between 1909 and 1977. These h(er)stories of ordinary women and their relationships, passions, conflicts, aspirations, frustrations et al, powerfully demonstrate how much women’s lives changed during the 20th century and how the darker side of its history crept into the most remote of their communities and lives, in particular through the impact of war (the story of a betrayal that brings the horror of the Nazi extermination camps to Rosenau broke…

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‘The Diary of a (Trying to Be Holy) Mum by Fiona Lloyd

You wanted to do something big for God since you became a Christian, but it's difficult when you have three primary aged children.  Your life tends to be taken up with toddler group, Mum's group at church, potties, creche, taking children to school and parties.  Becky is married to teacher Dave and has three children,...

‘Katharina Luther: Nun, Rebel, Wife’ by Anne Boileau

At nine years old, Katharina Von Bora was in the way.  A tomboy, and not prepared to flatter her new stepmother, she is sent away to the school attached to the Marienthron Convent at Nimbschen.  From that point onwards, she was being shoehorned into joining the order as a nun and, accordingly, she becomes a...

‘Portrait of a Marriage’ by Nigel Nicolson

Nigel Nicolson paints an endearing portrait of the marriage of his parents, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.  His viewpoint is that, despite many - mostly homosexual - affairs on both sides, and, after the first few years following their wedding, no action in the marital bed, the two were devoted, missing each other during their...

Book Reviews, Lack of

I try hard to make my posts interesting, relevant, witty, topical and otherwise SEOgenic, but this one is going to be boring.  Writers spend so much time writing to please... no, charm... editors etc that we have sometimes to allow ourselves some space to be ourselves and let go.  Dr Johnson wrote that 'No man...