A.S. Thomson

  • An Only Child and an Elderly Mother

    I have started this post many, many times. It’s not just the fibro fog making the words difficult to find, it’s that actually committing my thoughts and fears to the page forces me to accept that they are real, tangible and inescapable. But I’m a grown up and I hope that writing this all down…

  • The Book Keeper

      Recently, talented writer Linda Grant spoke in The Guardian about how she had to “kill her books” as she downsized to a new flat with much less room for bookcases. You can read the article here. Although for very different reasons, my husband and I are downsizing in just over three weeks time, moving…

  • Stabby Words and Cutting Remarks

    Last week Gary Parkin wrote a very good blog post about word lists and why it’s a good idea to use one when you are writing. You can read what he had to say about it here. Basically, Gary makes the point that it can be useful to have a small lexicon of era/genre/character specific…

  • My Creative Process – The Grand Blog Tour

    Firstly, many thanks to Abi Burlingham who nominated me to take part in the Grand Blog Tour for creative types. The whole point of these tours is to encourage new visitors to your blog so if this is your first time at my particular madhouse, hello, welcome and please come again. If you’re a regular…

  • The F Word

    Recently, my Facebook wall has been covered by a proliferation of semi-naked ripped men and it doesn’t make me happy. Let me explain. When I was a girl in the 1960s and 70s, women did not have equality. We were expected to be housewives, secretaries or work in factories for a fraction of what our…

  • Away With The Fairies

    Do you believe in magic? Most adults will answer no and claim to have outgrown magic at the same time they stopped believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. For adults, it survives only in children’s stories and Las Vegas variety shows. But ask the same question of a child and you’ll be told in…

  • The Quick by Lauren Owen

    I love a book which conjures me away to a different time, a different life and The quick, the debut novel by Lauren Owen certainly ticks those boxes. Brother and sister James and Charlotte live in Yorkshire where, in the absence of parents (a dead mother and disinterested father), they are looked after by household…

  • Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas

    Dark Fuse is proving to be a great publisher of horror shorts and Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas is no exception. Jeremy Stake is a shape-shifting PI who is doing time so his client he impersonates doesn’t have to. Stake is in no ordinary penitentiary: this future world, populated by aliens and mutants, has a…

  • Messages, Weegie Style

    It’s funny the memories that stay with you. All the small insignificant episodes and experiences that stick to you from childhood like well chewed spitballs on the classroom ceiling. They’re there, you can see them but there’s no way of getting up there to clean them out. Some memories are disturbing, things you’d rather forget…

  • Night Crawlers by Tim Curran

    If you look at the cover of Nightcrawlers by Tim Curran, see the oddly manicured female hands and the kitchy font of the title, you might be forgiven for expecting the literary equivalent of the type of movie shown by the Horror Channel at 3am: exploitative, all gore and no characterisation. Well, I hate to…

Got any book recommendations?

Get In Touch