Books Books Books

I spoke to Swiss-based author Caroline Bishop on the publication day of her debut novel The Other Daughter. Caroline is a journalist, editor and now author. Her book tells the story of two women working in Switzerland 40 years apart. Sylvia visits Switzerland in 1976 to cover the feminist revolution taking place after women were granted the vote. Jess arrives in Lausanne in 2016 with a mission of her own. The book is published today and is available from Books Books Books and independent bookshops throughout the UK and Europe. Please contact us if you would like a signed copy.

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi   Well booklovers, following my posts about my top unread books of last year, it made me really want to dive right in, so I started with The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda Hall. It was a beautiful book (not to mention a gorgeous cover!) and felt like a fairy tale. It’s classed as YA, but I whole-heartedly recommend it, no matter what your age. Sometimes YA books can feel a bit too… YA, but this one didn’t at all – it was just a wonderful story. It’s also LGBTQ+ friendly! This is a standalone book.   In a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic, a desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial lady find a connection on the high seas. Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is headed to an arranged marriage she dreads. Flora…

I had the pleasure of speaking to Morges Book Festival regular and award-winning writer Paul Lynch. Paul is the author of four novels. His debut, Red Sky in Morning was followed by The Black Snow, Grace and Beyond the Sea, which was published by Oneworld in 2019. His fiction has won numerous prizes and his journalism has been publishes in The Sunday Times and The Irish Times. Another Morges Book Festival regular, Michelle Bailat-Jones, joins me for a chat about Beyond the Sea, a story about what a pair of fisherman Bolivar and Hector find when a storm flings them flung far out into the Pacific. Please contact me if you would like to order a copy of of any of Paul’s books for either deliver or collection.

I caught up with Clare O’Dea to talk about Voting Day, her novella published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of women’s sufrage in Switzerland. The story is set in 1959 on the day of the first referendum on women’s suffrage. While women did not get the vote, the events of that day changed her characters’ lives forever. Clare lives in Fribourg and is the author of ‘The Naked Swiss’ and ‘The Naked Irish’. You can watch the interview here: Please contact me if you would like to order a copy of her book for either deliver or collection.