Oy Yew Nabbed by waif-catchers in the alley where he spends his days sniffing bread and dreaming of floury loafs, Oy Yew is dragged in front of the wiry-haired Mrs Rutheday who sets him to work at bench 54. Oy meets Linnet Pale, a colour-drained girl who becomes his first friend. But assembling unknown items…
Author: colingarrow
‘Fatal Forgery’ by Susan Grossey
Fatal Forgery Long before the days of online banking, a big part of any banker’s working life was trust – but not all bank employees were able to resist the lure of hard cash. In 1824, respectable banker Henry Fauntleroy is arrested on charges of forgery, leaving Constable Samuel Plank to find out exactly what’s…
‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections All Enid Lambert wants is to have one last Christmas with her family round her. She and her husband Alfred are getting on a bit and the reality of their lives together has reached a point where the words ‘fractured’ and ‘awkward’ may be the best they can hope for. At times, the…
When is a Blog Not a Blog?
The answer is of course – when it’s also a book. We’ve all heard stories of writers who’ve had their blogs turned into books in one of those rare incidences when some savvy publisher realised its potential and decided to grab the proverbial by the thingumajigs. And before you can say The New Harry Potter,…
Sharing a Box of Frogs
If I had a virtual box of blogs, it’d definitely be worth sharing, unlike a box of frogs which I imagine might fare better in the garden down by the pond. In recent weeks, several fellow bloggers have generously shared one or other of my blogs/websites, prompting new comments and more followers (which is nice). Having been ultra…
‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The twelve short stories collected together as ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ were first published in The Strand Magazine, beginning with ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’. Arthur Conan Doyle’s first two novels featuring the consulting detective (‘A Study in Scarlet’ and ‘The Sign of Four’) hadn’t made much of an impression…
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Word…
Way back at the end of 2013 I posted a short piece celebrating finishing my second novel. It went something like this: And the last line is finally on the page! The Architect’s Apprentice is finished and the bad guys are finally unmasked. Course, there are still questions, leaving plenty of scope for a follow…
Meet and Greet Weekend @ DBDO: 2/12/16
Saying the Same Old Thing…
One of the challenges in writing novels is how we use language. A big part of that language (obviously), is the words we use to say what we want to say. And while there are a fair few words available, it can be tough to constantly come up with new ways of saying the same…
‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons
Cold Comfort Farm I’ve wanted to read this novel since seeing the movie version back in the late 90’s (starring Kate Beckinsale, Eileen Atkins and Ian McKellen), but it’s taken me til now to actually get around to it. Stella Gibbons was working at the Evening Standard in 1928 when the paper decided to serialise…
