The villains in this book are written and developed beautifully, typical of Cassandra’s other books. However, I found the growing characters involved in the Cohort – a party dedicated to the control of Downworlders and Shadowhunters opposed to them, to be a very realistic sense of the ‘bad guy’ with themes of war, propaganda and other political concepts often brought to light in Queen of Air and Darkness.
An interview with Ronnie Scott
The author of The Adversary talks about his new book and where the idea came from, his settings, on rewriting, his nameless narrator, on making realistic characters, his influences, and lots more.
A review of Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today edited by Alison Whittaker
Fire Front is critically important reading – not just for the messages it contains, though they are both timeless and relevant to the world we’re living in right now, but also because this is work that is fresh, urgent, astonishing, beautiful, and heart-rendering and have the power that Whittaker talks about in her introduction, to change the shape world for the better.
A review of Born Slippy by Tom Lutz
A review of On Reflection by David Musgrave
On Reflection is a novelty. It is beautiful, delicate and memorable. The collection sweeps along philosophising possibilities, inventing life with breath-taking consciousness. In its own right, it reminds us to remain centred—in a word: read Musgrave.
A review of A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
A review of Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
Having travelled the distance that Giggs takes us in Fathoms, it seems obvious that there is no choice: “Each of us now sharpens the focus dial on the future of the ocean, of the weather, of the whales and their kin.” Fathoms is a glorious, beautiful and deeply important book.
An interview with Carmen Radtke
The author of Walking in the Shadow talks about her most recent (and oldest!) book, her writing routine (or lack thereof), advice for new writers, her research, the hardest scene she’s had to write, her work in progress, and lots more.
A review of Walking in the Shadow by Carmen Radtke
It is the clever detailing of life on the Island, and of leprosy, that makes this book so very engaging. Three men alone, with only occasional visits, making their own entertainment, caring for one another, knowing that two of them will never escape the Island unless it’s to go to another leper colony… Yet Carmen makes these men and their lives fascinating. There is real love here; gentle, unselfish, sometimes hard-tried love.
A review of A Constellation of Kisses edited by Diane Lockward
You don’t have to be a card carrying poetry lover to fall in love with the poems in this book. I’m planning to put the anthology on my coffee table and look forward to the conversations it sparks with guests. (That is when we are allowed to have guests again. I am writing to you from the heart of social distancing.) Some of these poems turned me on. Some of them made me long to be the person being kissed for the attention and tenderness of it. Some of them made me cry.