This review tries to cover the latest two books I’ve read recently: Where are the Grown-ups and Unsettled. They’re very much not a pair, so don’t expect one to cover both memoir and the challenges of change… Click through to Mari’s Book Club to read about Ruth Badley’s memoir Where are the Grown-ups? and Barbara… Read More

I love this book, and began reading it avidly the day it arrived. Celia Paul is an artist, a painter, and, as the book documents, we learn what it can be like when creativity is the driver in your life. “You need to give yourself completely, while at the same time seeing things from a… Read More

I’m excited to have been invited to join a ‘writers’ bloging group’: Authors Electric is a daily blog, where a month’s worth of writers each turn in a blogpost once a month. My ‘day’ is 22nd so look out for my first post on Friday – I’ve called it Introduction: beginnings please – as it’s… Read More

Podcast! You can now learn more about the background to my books and writing – Go to the About page, scroll down, and listen to this interview with Howard Lovy, a journalist with a special interest in promoting Indie Authors.

It’s a really personal choice: why we read, what we read, and when… Reading the Amazon reviews, I was struck by the number of readers who said they ‘couldn’t engage with the characters’ Or that ‘the characters all do far too much overthinking,’ or ‘talk too much the same’ or ‘are too articulate about their… Read More

Here is a relaxing read for any of us who have enjoyed school stories or even wondered how if not given to the National trust, a stately home can occupy its retirement years. Debbie Young(Author of the Sophie Sayers cosy mysteries) has now created a girls private boarding school just a mile or two down… Read More

Do you find yourself using the increasingly violent metaphors being used in the media and newspapers? Is ‘skyrocketing’, or ‘crashing out of Europe’ or ‘we can’t throw Ireland under a bus’ over dramatic, lazy, or a great way to describe political happenings in our 21st century? How do these words make you feel? Click on… Read More

Latest blogpost on the MariHowardAuthor blog. ‘As a writer, I am aware that publishing houses don’t want any ‘spiritual’ content in fiction today, (especially not ‘Christian’) yet I hesitate to ban from my stories the strange and informative interplay of strict and liberal ‘religious’ characters, rounded and believable, not caricatures or always the villains.’ Here… Read More

Today guest reviewer Edmund Weiner, who was also at the Scargill Writers’ Weekend,  writes about this interesting new book from Adrian Plass. Adrian has a thoughtful, insightful take on faith, God, and religious certainty (particularly Christianity) today… Find the review as usual on my Mari’s Book Club page, along with one on Out of Silence,… Read More

  All three of these books (novels Baby, Baby, and The Labyrinth Year, and the new poetry collection, Live Lose Learn) sold well at the ACW Writers’ Weekend at Scargill, Yorkshire recently!  The weekend, discussing, interactive talks, and group work, was led by Adrian and Bridget Plass – I’ll be reviewing Adrian’s latest book, Shadow… Read More