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Showing posts from March, 2022

In conversation with... Robert Graham

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Hi Robert! First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the publication of The Former Boy Wonder ! Can you please briefly tell us what it is about? A: It’s the story of Peter Duffy, a music writer whose life is falling apart. He’s on the cusp of 50, his career has gone down the tube, his marriage is in crisis, and Jack, his teenage son, appears to hate him. Because his work as a high-flying music writer has dried up, he’s been beached at home in Manchester. He used to live what he sees as the high life: touring the world with stadium-filling bands to write features on them for fictionalised versions of magazines like MOJO and UNCUT. While he has been engaged in that, his wife, Lucy, has been getting on with her life and because he's been an absent father, his son is angry with him. That’s the status quo, and then a friend from university days invites him to a party at the manor house where he met his first love, Sanchia Page. All his college friends are going to be there, and

Blog tour: The Flames

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Welcome to the blog tour for The Flames by Sophie Haydock Passionate. Sensuous. Mesmerizing. This is another case when the cover is as hot as the book it envelops. If you like drama, there is plenty here! What first drew me to this book, however, is the fact that it is based on real people. I’ve always found the art of Egon Schiele fascinating and I love it that the author gave voice to his muses. After all, there would be no art without them. More about the book… Vienna, at the beginning of the 20th century, is an exhilarating social whirl, a city of ideas, of music, of ground-breaking art, led by Gustav Klimt until the arrival of his scandalous protegee, Egon Schiele. Into this world come four women, each with their own story to tell: ADELE: passionate, fierce, obstinate. The daughter of a bourgeois family, she rails against the strictures of her class and harbours her own wild fantasies. GERTRUDE: spirited, single-minded, possessive. The sister to budding artist Egon Schiele, she l

Book review: The Night Flower

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Winner of the 2020 CBHL Annual Literature Award of Excellence in Children and Young Adult Literature An exquisitely illustrated non-fiction picture book about a desert flower that blooms for just one night a year. More about the book… As the summer sun sets over the Arizona desert, wildlife gather to witness a very special annual event. The night flower is beginning to bloom... This celebration transforms the quiet desert, for just a short few hours, into a riot of colour and sounds as mammals and insects congregate from miles away to take part in this miracle of nature. From pollinating fruit bats to burrowing owls, howling mice and reptilian monsters, join these animals on their journey to visit the flower in this beautiful nature-inspired story. Based on the Saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert, Arizona, this is a magical real-life tale from the natural world. The gentle lyrical text coupled with Lara Hawthorne’s illustrations is perfect for young readers. More about the author… Fre

Book review: Hatch and Babies

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Big flaps and pop-up surprises! Take a peek behind the big lift-the-flaps to discover the pop-up surprises in the charming POP AND PEEK series. Pop-up peekaboo books for babies and toddlers that explore simple animal concepts for gentle learning, interaction and lots of fun! What animals will hatch from the eggs in Hatch ? Can you find the baby animals playing hide and seek in Babies ? Big lift-the-flaps are perfect for little hands, simple text invites little ones to peek at the pages and cute pop-up animals will delight the littlest readers. With sturdy pages, and charming illustrations from Mel Matthews, the Pop and Peek series are stylish preschool pop-up books. Who do we have to thank for these gorgeous books? Mel Matthews is based in Melbourne, Australia. She studied Fine Art and Illustration and loves to draw things that make people smile. Mel is most known for her charming characters, and bright and bold illustrations for children's books, advertising campaigns and everythi

Book review: Pip and Drip

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Pip and Drip are the first titles in a brand new series by Maggie Li, which will explore different cycles in nature including trees, water, tadpoles, butterflies and birds. In these books, learn how a tiny seed grows into a might tree and how a little drop of rain will travel through the water cycle. These beautifully illustrated board books for the very young explore the life cycles of a tree and of a raindrop with an interactive cut-out hole throughout that highlights nature is full of changes, but that the story begins and ends the same. This is a gorgeous board book series that introduces toddlers to how the natural world works, that provides a simple novelty element that perfectly ties into the theme of the book. About Maggie Li (Author, Illustrator) Maggie Li is freelance illustrator and children's book author. Her first book, Bug Detective was published in 2014 and led to a series of authored non-fiction works which have been translated into multiple languages and publish