Blurb

“It starts as bloating, a hard curvature in my gut that won’t go away. I wonder if it’s my period, but it isn’t the right time. The cramps come slowly at first, like a slowly rising tide, and then grow shorter and sharper, a racing heartbeat.”

When Lia lays an egg she doesn’t know what to do. At her age, it’s impossible to escape the baby question, and all her friends seem to be having children. She feels her heart’s not in it – but all the same, there’s the egg, impossible to ignore, lying in a nest of towels in the living room.

Her partner on tour on the other side of the world and her mother diagnosed with a terminal illness, Lia finds herself torn, unsure whether she’s ready to give up on her songwriting dreams; but time is running out, and she must make one of the biggest decisions of her life.

FLEDGING is for every woman who’s felt weighed down by the baby decision – and paralysed by the fear that She’ll Regret Not Having Them One Day. It’s a call for women to make their own choices, whether that means embracing motherhood or living child-free.

Review

When I first heard about the premise of Rose Diell’s novel, I knew I had to read it. I was delighted to be offered a spot on the blog tour and an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review – many thanks to the wonderful Will at Renard Press.

I’m fascinated by ‘the motherhood question’ – ever since I read Sheila Heti’s autofictional novel, Motherhood, I’ve become increasingly aware of just how casually I tumbled into the state of motherhood, assuming it to be the next logical step but not interrogating my decision (barely registering it as a decision at all, in fact). Luckily for me, it was the right decision, but what a strange step to take so lightly, especially for someone like me, who is usually such an overthinker. I have a lot of respect for women who wrestle properly with this question, and I love seeing different explorations in fiction. All this to say, even though I’m a done deal motherhood-wise, this is a topic that really interests me, and this novel had me from the tagline.

Apart from being a fantastic hook, the premise of Lia laying an egg also creates a wonderfully dramatic opening scene. It’s the perfect showcase for the author’s lithe, spare prose, drawing us into the present tense narration and creating an immediate sense of trust in the writing – yes, the situation is outlandish, but we’re in good hands here, we can suspend our disbelief and go with the flow of Lia’s story.

There’s a lovely rhythm to this book, partly created by the natural stages each section describes (Brooding, Hatching, Fledging), but also by the different threads that the author weaves together. As well as her current dilemma, we get snatches of Lia’s past, we learn a little about her long distance relationship with David, her attempts to carve out a career as a songwriter, and, most significantly, her own mother’s illness. There is also a deep focus on Lia’s physical awareness of her body, and the strange pains she suffers – at times, this reminded me slightly of Maddie Mortimer’s excellent novel Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies. Both books share a precision of language and a way of exploring physical and emotional sensation in a way that feels careful, exacting, an unpeeling of thoughts and feelings to get to what is underneath. It’s really clever writing: understated, but beautiful – the sort of writing I trust to dig out the truth.

What I also really admire about Fledging is that it’s exactly as long as it needs to be. That may sound like faint praise, but it isn’t, I promise – it’s got more weight and heft than a short story, (though it reminds me a little of shorter works by Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood, two of my favourite writers) and the three acts create a satisfying narrative arc. It never feels stretched, despite the potential constraints of its allegorical centrepiece, and we get to know Lia in a way that feels nuanced and real. I love that we don’t get offered neat conclusions wrapped up in a bow – life is more complex than that, and individuals need to sift through the mess and the beauty and the chaos of who they are in order to make their own decisions.

This short but powerful book has a kind of mesmerising quality – Lia’s world becomes so vivid that the hook of the ‘wacky’ premise fades into accepted reality, and the beautiful writing takes over. I’d read anything else this author writes, and I highly recommend getting your hands on this wonderful story.

Fledging by Rose Diell is published by Renard Press and is available to purchase here.

Blurb

TWO COUPLES

Elena and Adam are housesitting in Wimbledon and are instantly seduced by their new upscale surroundings.

Sophia and Finn are their beautiful, enigmatic neighbours who invite them into their world.

ONE TWISTED GAME

When Sophia proposes a wicked game to Elena whereby they will swap partners in secret, it’s not long before Elena starts to experience a sexual awakening that blossoms into an illicit love affair.

But Sophia’s plans are far more complex and dangerous than Elena could ever have imagined…

WHO WILL SURVIVE?

Review

I don’t read that many thrillers, but every now and then, I do like to remind myself what I’m missing out on with this genre, and I always enjoy dipping my toe in. I was delighted to be sent a copy of The Switch in exchange for an honest review – many thanks to the author.

The premise of this book does require an initial suspension of disbelief, as it’s based on the Roald Dahl short story (for adults!) in which two men devise a plan to sleep with each others’ wives without the women knowing. In Samson’s novel, the gender roles are ‘switched’ and it’s the women who decide to deceive their husbands, with an elaborate plan that relies on the proximity of their houses and the strategic removal of lightbulbs from bedside lamps. As far-fetched as this might sound, Lily Samson pulls it off, and more, in this deeply compelling novel that I absolutely raced through.

The switch itself is only the beginning of a gorgeously tangled web of deceit, whose silky strands come undone one by one in intelligent, sharp, beautiful prose. It’s utterly addictive, with all four of the main characters offering a nuanced and tantalising selection of secrets and desire, and there’s a delicious sense of glamour and luxury that infuses the text like a perfume. This is a sexy book, and it’s one to be devoured in a gleeful reading spree.

The many twists and turns are handled with consummate skill, and I think readers will be surprised that this is the author’s debut. As I mentioned above, I’m not an expert on this genre, but it certainly seems as if Lily Samson is! The withholding and revealing of information is meted out perfectly, designed to keep you turning the pages while also forming your own wild theories – it really keeps you guessing, but when all the pieces finally slot into place, it works brilliantly. The pace doesn’t let up throughout – it’s fabulously relentless in maintaining the tension, and very, very hard to put down once you’ve started!

I think this will appeal to fans of writers such as Laure Van Rensburg, whose books Nobody But Us and The Good Daughter share Samson’s mix of dark psychological insight and stunning prose, but anyone who is looking for a cracking read this summer should check The Switch out. I will be waiting excitedly to see what’s next from this author!

The Switch by Lily Samson is published by Century and is available to purchase here.

Blurb

The countdown to the millennium has begun, and people are losing their heads. A so-called Y2K expert gives a presentation to Scotland’s eccentric Tech Laird T.S. Mole’s entourage in Edinburgh, and soon long hours, days, weeks and months fill with seemingly chaotic and frantic work on the ‘bug problem’. Soon enough it’ll be just minutes and seconds to go to midnight. Is the world about to end, or will everyone just wake up the next day with the same old New Year’s Day hangover?

A book about what we know and don’t know, about how we communicate and fail to, My Book of Revelations moves from historical revelations to the personal, and climaxes in the bang and flare of fireworks, exploding myths and offering a glimpse of a scandal that will rock Scotland into the twenty-first century. As embers fall silently to earth, all that is left to say is: Are we working in the early days of a better nation?

Review

Huge thanks to the lovely Will at Renard Press for my spot on the blog tour and for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. This is my third ‘Book book’ experience with Iain Hood, having also read and reviewed This Good Book and Every Trick in the Book, and it is such a joy to be back in his weird and wonderful imagination. You never know where he is going to take you, so you just buckle up and enjoy the ride.

My Book of Revelations opens with a history of the Gregorian calendar and plenty of fascinating facts about time, dates and countdowns. There’s an exuberance to this section that reminded me of Bill Bryson’s brilliant book A Short History of Nearly Everything – the curiosity and desire to know EVERYTHING, making the facts and figures leap off the page, as well as the gently sparkling humour, feels very Bryson-esque. The titbit about Kiribati jumping the International Date Line is just the sort of thing I love to read about, and there are many other treasures besides.

I love the strange way that time behaves in this book, looping and pausing as our narrator inches us closer to the new millennium, and the way the suspended moments allow for a detailed examination of the characters around him, including cameos from Muriel Spark, Jean Cocteau (with a Scottish accent, naturally) along with characters from Hood’s own previous works. Our obsession with countdowns, with the apocalypse, and with our own doom is cleverly explored, and the reference to ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ brought back a memory of my own millennium eve experience, when my friend and I were stumbling home down a country lane, and out of the mist the Grim Reaper appeared, waving his scythe. “Please tell me you see that too.” Luckily it was just another reveller on their way home. (Or was it?)

The narrator, who isn’t quite the expert he seems to be at first, is another great literary creation from Hood – I loved the titles of the short stories he is (not) writing, and at times his stream-of-consciousness style put me in mind of Ducks, Newburyport (albeit with a few more full stops). The whole book is stuffed with references to literature, science, film, TV, music, politics – it’s as if the creator of Trivial Pursuit had written a novel. I always think the dream is to write a book which, when someone asks you what it’s about, you can airily say ‘Oh, everything’ – Hood has pretty much achieved that here. This kind of playful experimentalism is, as I have said before, exactly why we need indie presses who champion writers like Hood. He has produced yet another startlingly good book.

About the Author

Iain Hood was born in Glasgow and grew up in the seaside town of Ayr. He attended the University of Glasgow and Jordanhill College, and later worked in education in Glasgow and the West Country. He attended the University of Manchester after moving to Cambridge, where he continues to live with his wife and daughter. His first novel, This Good Book, was published in 2021, followed by Every Trick in the Book in 2022.

My Book of Revelations by Iain Hood is published by Renard Press and is available to purchase here.

Blurb

A listless aristocrat, Lord Jones, finds himself in London during the Blitz, attending to insurance matters. A zebra and her foal, having escaped from the London Zoo during a bombing, cross his path, and he decides to take them back to his estate in Pembrokeshire. Little loved by his fascist-sympathiser parents, something in Lord Jones softens, and he realises he is lost, just like these zebras.

The arrival of the zebras sparks a new lease of life on the Pembrokeshire estate, and it is not only Lord Jones but the families his dynasty has displaced that benefit from the transformation. Full of heart and mischief, The Zebra and Lord Jones is a hopeful exploration of class, wealth and privilege, grief, colonialism, the landscape, the wars that men make, the families we find for ourselves, and why one lonely man stole a zebra in September 1940 – or perhaps why she stole him.

Review

I’m a big fan of Anna Vaught’s writing, and I’ve reviewed her novel Saving Lucia and two short story collections, Famished and Ravished on the blog in previous years. I was thrilled to be invited to take part in the blog tour for her latest novel, The Zebra and Lord Jones, which is being published with one of my favourite indie publishers, Renard Press.

While I relish the darkness of Anna Vaught’s short fiction, what I loved about Saving Lucia was the thread of joy and generosity running through it. That same energy seems to flow through the veins of her new novel – there is a lightness, a kindness, a delight in language and a sense of mischief that makes the book a pleasure to read.. The subject matter is not light – we have war and death and trauma here, and there is a depth and a breadth of references that feels encyclopaedic – I love the footnotes and the end matter, as well as the way the whole text is steeped in natural history and some of the most thorough zebra-research you’re likely to come across! But despite the backdrop of war, and the reminders of the awful things people do to each other and to the natural world, the overwhelming feeling is of a beautifully choreographed spectacle, a cast of delightfully eccentric characters lovingly assembled for our enjoyment.

The characters really are the stars of the show in this book, from Lord Jones and his gradual transformation to the fiercely blazing Anwen, guest appearances from figures such as Haile Selassie, characters that will capture your heart like Ernest the evacuee and Talbot the dedicated zookeeper, and of course, Mother and Sweetie, our striped equids, who bring the whole story together. But there is another character, and it’s one that is something of a stylistic trait of this author’s writing – the narrator of the story takes an active role on almost every page. We see the strings being pulled, the material being shaped, the careful weighing up of what to include and when, and it is this, I think, that gives the writing its classical feel. There is something about the confidence it displays in the power of storytelling that makes you feel as if you’re being grabbed by the hand and led on a huge adventure. It is a voice at once wise and childlike in its sense of wonder, and there is a lovely kind of breathlessness to the excitement at each new tidbit of information, each historical anecdote, each tasty morsal offered up for the reader to savour. The glee the narrator takes in knowledge, I think that’s what really struck me with this book, as it’s such a wonderful gift to be curious, and we often forget to be.

There are so many delights woven into this rich narrative – I love the ‘blasted owl’ and the vindictive ghosts, and the playful way the zebras communicate with the humans. I’m not sure I could give you a very precise summary of the plot, because I don’t think the plot is the thing here, so if you’re a stickler for a neat story this may not be your bag. But if you like literary fiction that’s going to both tease and comfort you, that’s going to offer an almost maternal reassurance that there is beauty and goodness and humour left in the world, and that, above all, is going to gently urge you to be constantly, delightfully curious, then you’ll find much to enjoy in The Zebra and Lord Jones.

About the Author

Anna Vaught is an English teacher, Creative Writing teacher, mentor, editor and author of several books, including Saving Lucia, Famished, Ravished and These Envoys of Beauty. Her short creative works and features have been widely published, and she has written for the national press and has had a column with The Bookseller and Mslexia. In 2022 Anna launched The Curae, a new literary prize for carers. Anna is also a guest university lecturer, a tutor for Jericho Writers, and volunteers with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. She is the mother of three sons, comes from a large Welsh family and lives in Wiltshire. The Zebra and Lord Jones is her third novel and seventh book.

The Zebra and Lord Jones by Anna Vaught is published by Renard Press and is available to pre-order here.