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We’re delighted to feature a video of the live, in-person of Zamani by Jane Bryce.

It was a pleasure to spend part of a Sunday with Alexina Dalgetty, Omar Sabbagh and an engaged audience of readers on Zoom today to launch two great fiction titles — The Cleaning Woman’s Daughter and Y Knots.

In both books the pressure on language, the richness of characterisation, and the attention to detail shines out.

You can catch up with the launch here and the discount code can be used to December 30 so get your copies soon.

Cinnamon author Yaara Lahav Gregory’s debut novel came out on October 20 in the midst of the current trqgedy engulfing Isreal and Gaza.

Israeli-born, Yaara has spoken about heartbreak in the face of this situatiion and the need for calm and depolarisation.

Yaara, who has lived in Devon for 30 years, grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and her novel, Night Swimming in the Jordan, is set in Israel and England.

“It has taken me years to write this book and get it to publication.  The story has arisen out of the time and place where I grew up, in a kibbutz in 1970s Israel, and is deeply rooted in the complexities of this very troubled part of the world. Coincidentally, the novel is being published at a time when all these issues have boiled over once again, causing pain and trauma to thousands of innocent people. Perhaps, in terms of its immediate relevance, that is a good thing, but at the same time I am heartbroken by recent events and the ongoing hostilities. It’s difficult to think of celebrating my new novel at such a troubled time.

Yaara’s family are all still in Israel, so it’s an anxious time for her and for the many Israelis and Palestinians watching from a distance.  A lifelong peace activist, she has worked with others for many years to promote Palestinian rights within both Israel and the Occupied Territories. She advocates for a peaceful and just solution to the conflict and is deeply disheartened by recent events and concerned at what the coming weeks may bring.

Her novel is a coming-of-age love story which also explores many of the burning political issues affecting the region. Yaara has had mixed feelings about the inadvertant timing of her novel coming out now, but hopes it will give people a perspective on this complex and troubled region. The book tells the story of Abbie, an idealistic young girl growing up in an isolated kibbutz community, who ends up leaving her homeland, never to return. It explores what it means to grow up in someone else’s Utopia, where the threat of war is ever present, and relationships are coloured by politics and ideology.  Abbie leaves Isreal after a fateful protest march on the eve of her wedding and it is only decades later that her daughter begins to uncover the devastating reality of her mother’s childhood in a social experiment that discarded family life in favour of the collective. But can the truth ever be recovered?

If you are in Devon, Yaara will be talking about the novel and the ongoing Israel-Palestine situation at the Ashburton Arts Centre on 23 November. You can find the details of this and other events Yaara is taking part in on her website events page.

And this is whee you will find Night Swimming in the Jordan

The launch of reminded of something and Shake the Kaleidoscope with Robin Thomas and G W Colkitto was a superb event with outstanding poetry readings and a great follow up discusssion.

If you missed the launch, catch it here and the discount code will work till the end of November 2023 so scoop up their wonderful poetry collections.

(Apologies for the jump at the beginning—it’s all good from there)

It was a delight to launch Patricia Helen Wooldridge’s Out in the Field on 13th April, supporting by a lovely audience from the UK, Europe, the US and Barbados.

Drawn into the fields through Patricia Helen Wooldridge’s meticulous observation, our minds breathe alongside the poet’s. Within the spell of these pages we find ourselves in a world with a different notion of time and change. We find ourselves in the moment.

Enjoy the video and you can find the book here