Everything Is Better With Dragons
Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon
So, next week is the last before I have a few weeks off. I’ll be concentrating on my own writing, maybe reading a few of the TBR pile of books I’ve bought myself as a treat, and going to Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate! Big, big, anxiety inducing, adventure.
However, before that it’s going to be busy on the blog. The second half of the week will be anyway.
11th July
13th July
14th July
Storytellers
In March 1920 Icelandic days are short and cold, but the nights are long. For most, on those nights, funny, sad, and dramatic stories are told around the fire. But there is nothing dramatic about Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith who barely manages to make ends meet. He knows nobody will remember him – they already don’t. All he wants is peace, the company of his animals, and a steady supply of his medication. Sometimes he wonders what it would feel like to have a story of his own. He’s about to find out.
Sigurd – a man with a plan, a broken ankle, and shocking amounts of money – won’t talk about himself but is happy to tell a story that just might get Gunnar killed. The blacksmith’s other “friends” are just as eager to write him into stories of their own – from Brynhildur who wants to fix Gunnar, then marry him, his doctor who is on the precipice of calling for an intervention, The Conservative Women of Iceland who want to rehabilitate Gunnar’s “heathen ways” – even the wretched elf has plans for the blacksmith.
As his defenses begin to crumble, Gunnar decides that perhaps his life is due for a change – on his own terms. But can he avoid the endings others have in mind for him, and forge his own?
Purchase Links:
UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storytellers-Bj%C3%B8rn-Larssen-ebook/dp/B07P8Z74CC
US – https://www.amazon.com/Storytellers-Bj%C3%B8rn-Larssen-ebook/dp/B07P8Z74CC
Continue reading “Review: ‘Storytellers’, by Bjorn Larssen”
Summary:
Meet Tavish the Tractor, he’s a bit different from the other tractors, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a busy tractor! Let him show you how!
Information about the Book
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28535427-the-arrival-of-tavish-the-tractor
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arrival-Tavish-Tractor-Anne-Stewart/dp/1913136507/
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Arrival of Tavish the Tractor’, by Anne K Stewart”
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Space Between Time’, by Charlie Laidlaw”Blurb
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth…
Emma Maria Rossini’s perfect life begins to splinter when her celebrity father becomes more distant, and her mother dies suspiciously during a lightning storm. This death has a massive effect on Emma, but after stumbling through university, she settles into work as a journalist in Edinburgh.
Her past, however, cannot be escaped. Her mental health becomes unstable. But while recovering in a mental institution, Emma begins to write a memoir to help come to terms with the unravelling of her life. She finds ultimate solace in her once-derided grandfather’s Theorem on the universe – which offers the metaphor that we are all connected, even to those we have loved and not quite lost.
Continue reading “Review: ‘A Modern Family’, by Helga Flatland”The Norwegian Anne Tyler makes her English debut in a
THE BOOK
beautiful, bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare
psychological insights…
When Liv, Ellen and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive
in Rome to celebrate their father’s seventieth birthday, a quiet earthquake
occurs: their parents have decided to divorce.
Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their
parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for
themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their
childhood and family history.
A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological
insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to
us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for
change…
Continue reading “Extract Post: ‘Injections of Insanity’, by Lorraine Mace”Injections of Insanity
Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling has just six weeks to solve a series of murders by insulin injection, with nothing to connect the victims except the manner of death and a note left at each crime scene.
The murderer, determined to avenge a wrong from many years earlier, gets close to his prey by assuming various identities.
Can Paolo win in his race against the pretender?
CW: Gaslighting, med trauma
[*Caveat: I am no way trying to say that having a diagnosis of bipolar, schizophrenia, or borderline personality disorder is bad. I believe the stigma surrounding these diagnoses is terrible, and people who have these diagnoses shouldn’t be treated as scary or ill – they should be treated as people. I am also not trying to say that medication is bad or unhelpful. Plenty of autistic people do have depression and anxiety, and other co-occurring diagnoses such as bipolar disorder, and medication can be very a useful treatment for people. The problem I am addressing here is that autistic people are receiving misdiagnoses which can further harm their mental health, through medication or gaslighting by professionals. Professionals tell them that they cannot possibly be autistic, or misinterpret autistic people’s answers to screening questions and misdiagnose them. People who are accurately diagnosed with bipolar, schizophrenia, or borderline personality…
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 