Writing the Uncanny by Dan Coxon and Richard Hirst (eds)

My rating: 5/5

This collection of essays was compelling and fascinating. Each tackles an element of weird or scary fiction and unpacks what makes it so. Rather than specific writing tips, each author reflects on their own work or the works of others, with plenty of examples given for further reading. From humour to ghosts to setting to automatons, and referencing everyone from Freud to Austen, Hoffmann to Shirley Jackson, there is so much here to prick the imagination. I know I’ll return to this book again and again.

A Wild and True Relation by Kim Sherwood

My rating: 5/5

This historical novel was the work of over a decade. Set in the early 1700s and focusing on a young girl who is brought up by smugglers on board ships, disguising herself as a boy, the plot is immediately fascinating. Sherwood masterfully paints each character, so that we truly care, and cleverly weaves essays on female writers of the time into the prose, so that we gradually answer the question of how much of the story is true — and why. An illuminating and intelligent read.