The Lovereading family of book recommendation sites are different from many online book sites as we have real book experts selecting and reviewing the books. We passionately believe that Lovereading’s and Lovereading4kids's absolutely superb ‘expert voices’, with their own specialities, are invaluable in helping readers discover the best books. Find out more about them below.

Sarah Broadhurst

sarahbroadhurst-2Sarah Broadhurst spent her early working life in the book trade in both retail and wholesale until the arrival of children forced her to look for freelance work she could dofrom home.

Her position of paperback buyer in Hatchards and then director of a book wholesale company gave her a wide knowledge of all sectors of the trade. She felt the trade lacked unbiased opinion, every publisher had the “best thing since sliced bread” and she knew the trade would benefit from an independent overview of the book published each month. She sold her idea to the trade journal The Bookseller and has, for the last 25 years, been writing a monthlyarticle (from home!) on the new paperbacks on offer.

Over the years her opinion has become highly valued in the trade and she has become an expert in her field,contributing to many radio and television shows and reviewing in a wide range of newspapers andmagazines from the Daily Expressto Good Housekeeping.

Her speciality is supporting new authors. Writers who have atough time getting recognised. She has backed unknown first novels from the likes of Terry Pratchett, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters and joins us now in introducing some of the unknown stars of the future to you.

Julia Eccleshare M.B.E

Julia Eccleshare has spent her working life to date within children's books as a critic, an editor, an author and a commentator. Apart from her current role as Editorial contributor and advisor to Lovereading4kids, she is the children's editor of the Guardian.

She has co-edited and is the author of a number of books including the Rough Guide to Teenage Literature, the fascinating and insightful Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter: Portraits of Children's Writers, which is a celebration of a century of children's literature, as well as Treasure Islands: the Woman's Hour Guide to Children's Books. She also spent some considerable time as a children's fiction editor in UK publishing. She has been a selector to the Children's Books of the Year, a guide to the best books published annually, a member of the advisory board of a children's book club and for some while was children's books editor of The Bookseller. She regularly appears as a judge or Chair of judges on some of the major children's book prizes including the Whitbread (now called the Costa) and the Nestle among others.

Maxim Jakubowski

Maxim Jakubowski is a London-based novelist and editor. He was born in the UK and educated in France. He worked for many years in publishing in editorial director positions for Virgin, the Thomson Organisation, Penguin and Ebury Press before opening the world-famous Murder One bookshop in 1988.

He has written on and reviewed crime for Time Out, The Guardian, the Times, the Daily Telegraph and The Bookseller, amongst other publications, and is a regular broadcaster on radio and TV, and lectures on both crime and mystery fiction, and erotica. He also runs CRIME SCENE, London's annual crime film and literature festival, and is an adviser to the International Mystery Film Festival.

Sue Baker

Sue Baker has for many years been a regular non-fiction reviewer to the book trade and now in addition that role, she’s taken on the mantle of ‘expert voice’ in the non-fiction area for Lovereading. Areas that she’ll cover on the site include History, Popular Science, the Environment, Gardening and Cookery as well as regular special features Biography and Autobiography.

As Sue says, ‘as a bookseller, book buyer and then reviewer it has always been my greatest pleasure to introduce exciting books to new readers. Non-fiction has always been a passion and now, through Lovereading.co.uk I look forward to sharing my passion seeking out the best, the most interesting and unusual non-fiction around.”

Alison Flood

alisonfloodI was that child who used to read under the table during dinner and in the corners at family gatherings. Now I work on the books desk for the Lovereading.co.uk, The Guardian, and review books (thrillers, mostly, but science fiction and fantasy when I can), for whoever will have me, including the Observer and the Sunday Times.
When I lived in London, my house was bursting at the seams with books; now I live in Norway, it's my ereader which is overwhelmed with riches.
I've two small children, and am loving re-reading favourites from childhood with them.

Andrea Reece

Andrea Reece has spent all her working life in children’s books. Her first job was at Transworld Publishers back in the 1980s where, amongst other things, she ran the fan club for readers of the smash hit teen series Sweet Dreams.

She went on to work for other children’s publishers, large and small, and with authors including David Almond, Nick Butterworth, Mick Inkpen and Michael Morpurgo. In 2005 she set up children’s independent Catnip Publishing Ltd., publishing Richard and Judy favourite Scaredy Squirrel in the process, and went on to run Books for Keeps, the children’s books journal.

She is very used to odd looks from people on trains and buses who see her reading children’s books, and is still as excited as ever to discover a new children’s author. Apart from being one of the Lovereading4kids editorial experts alongside Julia Eccleshare she is also director of the children’s and young people’s programme of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Joanne Owen

Joanne-Owen_smJoanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real. An early passion for culture, story and folklore led Joanne to read archeology and anthropology at St John’s, Cambridge, after which she worked as a bookseller, and led the UK children’s book buying team for a major international retailer. During this time, Joanne also wrote children’s book previews and features for The Bookseller, covering everything from the value of translated fiction, to the contemporary YA market. Joanne later joined Bloomsbury’s marketing department, where she had the pleasure of working on epic Harry Potter launches at Edinburgh Castle and the Natural History Museum, and launching Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. After enjoyable spells as Marketing Director for Macmillan Children’s Books and Consumer Marketing Manager for Walker Books, Joanne went freelance, primarily working for multi-award-winning independent children’s publisher, Nosy Crow.

Alongside her publishing career, Joanne has written several books for children/young adults. She’s now a fulltime reviewer, workshop presenter and writer, working on YA novels with a strong basis in diverse folklore from around the world, as well as fiction for younger readers (in which witches are very much real).

Simon Spanton

Simon_spanton_smSimon Spanton has been a publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as mainstream fiction, for 25 years. Prior to that he was a bookseller. He worked at Macmillan and Orion. In that time he published authors such as Ben Aaronovitch, Peter F. Hamilton, Scott Lynch, Richard Morgan and Brandon Sanderson.

He's always believed the genre should be home to bestsellers with the widest possible appeal as well niche titles. SF and Fantasy should be about a sense of wonder and strangeness conveyed by gripping stories, peopled by empathetic characters and told in satisfying prose. As well as reading he's likely be watching a film, walking or cycling. Although not at the same time.

Liz Robinson

Mail Attachment-1"Liz's love of science fiction and fantasy began at a very young age when her Mum introduced her to Edward Lear and C. S. Lewis, she shook their hands and still tiptoes off to escape reality by exploring magical new worlds. The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell opened the door to Historical Fiction and she has walked through time ever since.

Liz worked as a Police Civilian for twenty years (in order as a Comms Officer, Criminal Intelligence Analyst, Briefing Officer and Crime Reduction Advisor), she therefore counts herself as a somewhat expert armchair detective and derives much pleasure in popping the villain behind bars, even if she finds she has to release them soon after. She loves to scare herself silly with psychological thrillers and horror and swing into action and adventure tales. Liz started writing expert reviews for Lovereading in February 2014 and while she (quite literally sometimes) gobbles up books of any genre, has added the exciting new world of Young Adult fiction to her top reads.

People have been known to be extremely envious when they hear that Liz reads for a living, if she were in their shoes, she would be too!"

Mary Hogarth

Mary-HogarthFormer journalist Mary Hogarth has nearly 20 years industry experience covering all aspects of magazine publishing.

An educator, media specialist and writer, Mary previously led the Features Journalism programme group at Southampton Solent University. During the course of her career she has written numerous features for a variety of magazines and recently published How To Launch A Magazine In This Digital Age.

She now runs her own consultancy practice themagazineexpert, specializing in magazine business, new title launches, editorial development and audience engagement. @themagexpert  www.themagazineexpert.com