book editor, bibliophile + word nerd
Talk about H is for Hard. If this wasn’t one of my book club reads I think I would have given up, but I am glad I persevered. It is not an easy book to read but the words on the page are simply beautiful and I now know more about goshawks than I thought ...
When the United Kingdom is divided into four based on the four humours - sanguine, melancholic, choleric or phlegmatic – people are sent to live in the quarter where they are deemed to belong. Thomas Parry is one such child, taken from his parents in the middle of the night. What follows is his journey ...
What a hoot. Recommended by my crazy English friend Tops and is a fab holiday read. Interesting take on the monarchy and what goes on behind closed doors, (palace doors that is!). Imagine the Queen donned in a hoody taking the train to Scotland, looking for a bit of time out. I can now! As my friend ...
You think you know someone but you never really do. This is the premise of Paul Torday’s novel The Girl on the Landing. This is the first of Torday’s books that I have read, although I have been meaning to read Salmon Fishing in the Yemen since it came out in 2006 and received wide acclaim. I ...
What a hoot this British classic is! First published in 1932, I can’t believe it has taken me so long to discover. If you love things like the “Vicar of Dibley” then you will love this novel. First published in 1932, Cold Comfort Farm is a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a city girl’s visit to her quirky ...
One of the joys of being in a book club is that you get to read books that you normally wouldn’t pick up or those that have slipped by you while your life was going on elsewhere. The Other Hand falls into the latter category for me and for such a great topical read about ...
If you are after a quick reference guide on the Brontë sisters then The Bronte Story is a compact read of around 60 pages that will set you straight. Having recently read the fictional work The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë by Laura Joh Rowland, I was drawn to this compact Oxford Bookworm to jolt my ...
The Hours of the Night by Sue Gee is one of those novels that can take a while to get into but stays with you long after the final page. Set in the beautiful countryside on the border of Wales and England, it is the story of eccentric poet Gillian Traherne and her strained and awkward ...
Pemberley is just one of the many sequels that have been written to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and was penned by Emma Tennant in 1993, some 180 years after the original work. Any attempt at a Jane Austen sequel can be deemed very brave or very stupid, but as there are so many die-hard ...
Those who treasure a beautiful love story will pick up this novel by Helen Simonson and never want it to end. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand has been called, amongst other things, a romance for wrinklies; but it so much more. It contains everything one could want in a novel: love; death; compassion and greed; an unlikely yet ...
I am an Australian freelance editor, proofreader and blogger with extensive experience working with books, magazines, newspapers, websites, social media and academic journals.
