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Bird,Blood,Snow was published in paperback on 1st November 2012, priced 8.99 ( GBP ) Award winning Welsh writer Cynan Jones pens the latest addition to Seren''s critically acclaimed series:- New Stories From The Mabinogion Read our interview with Cynan Jones Other Titles by Cynan Jones The Long Dry Everything I Found At The Beach ... As befits any retelling of the Mabinogion ''Peredur'' story this is a grim and sanguinary tale. The original revolves around the hero''s attempts to win favour and esteem at the medieval court of King Arthur. In...
Read MoreRead our Interview with Author Phil Rowlands here ... ... "Ebenezer Clinton Scrooge III presides over a vast media empire from his base in New York City but this Christmas Eve his world is about to descend into chaos. At the centre of the nightmare is a girl with auburn hair." A 21st century re-imagining of the Dickens classic by Welsh writer Phil Rowlands. Buy A Christmas Carol Revisited here ' ,,'' Charles Dickens ''A Christmas Carol'' was an enormously popular and influential book. Indeed there are those who claim that many of our current...
Read MoreBack to Welsh Literature page > The second Thomas Oscendale novel, following the success of ''The Dead of Mametz''. Fresh from the horrors of the Great War on the Western front, military policeman Thomas Oscendale is enjoying leave in his South Wales hometown when he is drawn into the investigation of the savage murder of a war widow. Buy Demons Walk Amongst Us here ,,, ... "Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it''s a letdown, they won''t buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your...
Read MoreBack to Welsh Literature page > Read our interview with author Richard Rhys Jones here From the authors blog :- " My publishers at Taylor Street were looking for someone to write about a haunted house. The series "American Horror Story" and the film "The Woman in Black" had hit American audiences in a big way. American Horror Story, with its creepy characters, perverse subplots and psychotic undertones, and The Woman in Black with its eerie atmosphere and dark isolation, had turned the haunted house genre around in the public mind, putting it firmly back on...
Read MoreBack to Welsh Literature page > Read our interview with C.M. Saunders here After an initial blaze of glory, during which they became (and still remain) the only non-English club ever to win the coveted FA Cup and came within a whisker of winning the old First Division title, Cardiff City began a slow, painful descent down the footballing hierarchy, into relative obscurity.. Sometimes, however, miracles do happen. Buy From The Ashes here Following Cardiff City's historic promotion to the Premier league it is only to be expected that the team will...
Read More... Examines the life and work of the Rev. Robert Williams (1810-1881), a Celtic scholar and antiquary who was born in Conwy, Wales, and spent most of his working life as a rural clergyman and private tutor at Rhydycroesau (formerly Llawnt Ucha), near Oswestry. The book uses his diary and his correspondence with other Celtic scholars to reveal the extent of his Welsh and Cornish studies, and to bring to life the man behind the scholar and cleric. Buy ''The Llawnt Williams'' here ... The Rev. Robert Williams lived the quiet and uneventful life of a mid nineteenth...
Read MoreRead our interview with author Peter Luther here The Vanity Rooms by Peter Luther - A Review The Vanity Rooms is the third episode in the Honeyman saga in which a de-frocked Baptist minister battles an old, demonic Welsh priesthood. Precious Cargo Dark Covenant The Mourning Vessels ... .. The estate agent begins to pay attention when she learns that he is an aspiring writer and his name is Kris Knight. She remembers her client telling her:- " He is wanting to be artist. His name is chesspiece." She drives at speed...
Read MoreRead our interview with Delphine Richards here ... ... Blessed Are The Cracked This interconnected collection of five novellas and two short stories from the casebook of retired local policeman Tegwyn Prydderch, is set in the fictional West Wales farming community of Llanefa. .. These are not ''comfortable'' tales and Llanefa is no ''chocolate box'' Welsh village. Author Delphine Richards worked as a cop in rural Wales for a number of years and one can only assume that she brought her experience of real crime and real police work to the pages...
Read MoreRead our interview with Jim Perrin here If you only buy one book about Snowdon in your lifetime make sure it's this one! It is clear throughout that the author has enjoyed a peculiarly intimate lifelong relationship with Eryri and never more so than when he recounts his plan for a trip around the mountain in the opening chapter:- "The late Showell Styles, one of this mountain regions most ardent and articulate devotees, in a charming, knowledgeable,garrulous book,The Mountains of North Wales, proposed that you should do just this as a rapid, minds-eye...
Read More... ... ... A review of Welsh poet and novelist Mike Jenkins new anthology Barkin . " A former winner of the Wales Book of the Year competition for 'Wanting to Belong' (Seren), Jenkins is a former editor of Poetry Wales and a long-term coeditor of 'Red Poets'. " ... ... .. It is always a pleasure to welcome a new anthology from one of Wales most renowned and talented poets. But 'Barkin' is no ordinary poetry anthology. A quick scan of the contents page reveals that this collection comprises 31 poems and 3 short stories and the titles reveal a common...
Read MoreRead our interview with author Madoc Roberts here ... ... Buy 'Snow' HERE ( Kindle edition available ) Snow is that rare thing an important work of historical research that reads like a fast-paced spy thriller. Although it must be added that the events recounted therein would be deemed highly improbable if they were fiction. The central character Arthur Graham Owens is a study in vanity, folly , recklessness, courage and determination combined. This deeply flawed character commands respect, despite his many weaknesses, because his antics...
Read More2 CommentsThis book opens dramatically with a description of a major cardiac incident resulting in hospitalization for the author. Thankfully the attack was survivable and we move on rapidly to a description of the rather stressful lifestyle which produced it. For anyone who doesn''t know who he is, Howard Marks a.k.a Mr Nice a.k.a Marco Polo , born in Kenfig Hill, South Wales is one of the world''s most notorious and successful drug dealers. In a career which spanned the 1970''s and 1980''s he moved vast quantities of cannabis around the globe and became one of the most wanted international...
Read MoreThis book surprised and delighted me in equal measure. At one point author Jon Gower observes that:-"The world of coincidence is uncharted mystery". This might be understood as the books theme as it charts coincidental occurrences in Buenos Aries, Oakland Bay and Cardiff bound together, albeit tentatively, by the onward progress of a paper boat. The boat, made of newspaper, is home to the mortal remains of Flavia, a former resident of Buenos Aries whose 'undead' body travels the globe inspiring scientific speculation and religious devotion in its wake. In a recent interview with...
Read MoreThis novel is set in an alternative universe. One in which the Nazis succeed in conquering Russia and invading Britain after the failure of the D-Day landings in 1944. Such literary contrivances can seem very intrusive in a work of 'mainstream' literature but to Owen Sheers' credit the conceit is rendered with a masterful touch and seems almost essential in order to intensify the focus of the books' main theme. In the depths of a freezing winter in a remote corner of the Black Mountains in South Wales two people consider whether it is possible to 'cheat' history;...
Read More2 CommentsRead our Interview with Peter Williams here This book is a joy to possess. It is a must for the serious researcher and the collector of historical trivia alike. With over 2,700 entries, author Peter Williams covers a lot of ground in this volume. On page 284 we find an entry entitled "Oldest Survival of Old Welsh". This is cross referenced with the entry for St. Cadfan where we learn that he was:- "...a missionary from Brittany, whose commemorative stone at Tywyn, Merionethshire has the oldest surviving example of Old Welsh." This is one of the books many...
Read More2 CommentsSpeaking as a hard-core short story fanatic, I can honestly say that Lloyd Jones' "My First Colouring Book" has been the high point of my literary year so far. It's great to see a Welsh author who has so far mastered this genre as to be worthy of mention alongside Carver, Cheever, Maupassant, Mansfield and, dare one even suggest it, Chekhov himself. Lloyd Jones is fond of referring to his writing as "scribblings". In this collection he has elected to "scribble" in a dazzling variety of colors, all of which are intensely evocative. There are many fine things in this anthology....
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