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Sarah Broadhurst - Editorial Expert

Sarah 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 do from 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 monthly article (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 and magazines from the Daily Express to 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.

Latest Reviews By Sarah Broadhurst

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
  If you are new to the series you really should start here to get the full background.  After that you can appreciate the others in any order you like but they do follow through as Precious Ramotswe’s love/office/family and friendships develop.  They are uplifting, warm and strangely compelling, a must-read for all. Books in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series: 1. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency 2. Tears of the Giraffe 3. Morality of Beautiful Girls 4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men 5. The Full Cupboard of Life 6. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies 7. Blue Shoes and ... View Full Review
Fog Island
This is the first of a trilogy and therefore must, of course, set the scene for those to come.  It is about a cult that uses a beautiful old house on a Swedish island as its centre. The leader is Oswald, naturally unbelievably charismatic. Our heroine is Sofia, a sad lost girl suffering from a broken relationship and looking for a purpose in life. An obvious recruit. Oswald asks her to set up his library, an enticing offer. All goes well until winter sets in and brings the fog of the title. It also makes prisoners of those on ... View Full Review
Fog Island
This is the first of a trilogy and therefore must, of course, set the scene for those to come.  It is about a cult that uses a beautiful old house on a Swedish island as its centre. The leader is Oswald, naturally unbelievably charismatic. Our heroine is Sofia, a sad lost girl suffering from a broken relationship and looking for a purpose in life. An obvious recruit. Oswald asks her to set up his library, an enticing offer. All goes well until winter sets in and brings the fog of the title. It also makes prisoners of those on ... View Full Review
Roar
Thirty very different pieces about extraordinary women, keenly observed and astute. They cover the spectrum from triumphant to pathetic, sad to humorous, surprising to surreal. There is the woman who unravels, another who grows wings, one who secretly paints her grass green, one talks to ducks, one slips through a timeless crack and another is put on a shelf. Some will irritate, others make you laugh or cry. Do not consume too many together else you will lose the flavour. I would believe it to be a good bedtime listen, enjoy two or three a night and take the next ... View Full Review
Roar
Thirty very different pieces about extraordinary women, keenly observed and astute. They cover the spectrum from triumphant to pathetic, sad to humerous, surprising to surreal. There is the woman who unravels, another who grows wings, one who secretly paints her grass green, one talks to ducks, one slips through a timeless crack and another is put on a shelf. Some will irritate, others make you laugh or cry. Do not read too many together else you will lose the flavour. I would believe it to be a good bedside book, read two or ... View Full Review
The Wanderer
There are those who will kill to hide the truth. The fifth in the Fire and Ice Icelandic series featuring Magnus Jonson. They follow each other and are best read in order to fully appreciate the protagonist who here takes a sideways step. The plot involves the discovery of an Icelandic shell necklace in an archaeological dig in Nantucket, so proving, some believe, that the Icelanders discovered America long before Columbus. Indeed there is documentation proving this in the Vatican that Columbus wrote to his brother recounting this. A TV documentary is being made about the controversy and now folks ... View Full Review
Paris Echo
Classic stuff with Paris very much at its centre.  Although set in the present, the past echoes through it as various people brush up against history, politics and atrocities.  Our main characters are a 19-year old, illegal, Moroccan immigrant, Tariq, and a lonely, middle-aged American academic, Hannah, bruised by a love affair in Paris ten years earlier.  Tariq works in a fried chicken shop with a couple of Algerians who discuss the brutality of the French in the war of independence. This echoes the interviews Hannah is transcribing for her research about women under German occupation.  ... View Full Review
Before Her Eyes
We are in a small English town, big enough for a hospital and strong police presence but small enough for everyone to know everyone's business. 20 years ago a teenager girl went missing. Our protagonist, Naomi is blind, still in love with her ex-husband and suicidal. Twice she goes to the cliff top to contemplate jumping. On her way home in a depressed state she stumbles upon a recently murdered girl and possibly disturbs the murderer.  The investigating police seem, as far as the new DS Marcus Campbell can tell, to be hiding something and he clashes badly with his ... View Full Review
The Good Doctor of Warsaw
An emotionally tough read that tells a story which must not be forgotten. Based on the lives of two of the central characters, Sophia and Misha, it centres on an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War and of the work of Dr Janusz Korezak, the Good Doctor of the title. The story begins in 1937 when Poland is independent. The anti-Jewish bigotry festering in fascist Germany is slowly spreading throughout Central Europe but life is still pleasant in Warsaw. Misha and Sophia are in love. There is a charming chapter when, in July 1939, the children from Korezak&... View Full Review
Munmun
When financial wealth means physical size, everyone wants to get big. Watch out for the little people… A stunning read. A fascinating and complex novel of ideas that is also a fast and brutal gangland thriller. Like such master pieces as Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World or Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey, Jesse Andrews asks the reader to accept a world similar to ours, with one vital difference. In this case it is the fact that wealth equates with physical size; the more you have, the bigger you can grow. Those who live in ... View Full Review
The Devil's Half Mile
Historical Murder Mystery set at the birth of the New York stock market, where no one can be trusted. The birth of the American stock market, an intriguing time between the War of Independence and the Civil War. Slavery still exists but blacks are free in New York, warring with the immigrant Irish for work. The situation is exacerbated by the Ripper-like murders of black prostitutes and the suspicious deaths of Wall Street business men. Every character is part of a conspiracy or hiding a dark secret, everyone is lying and nothing is what it seems. As soon as one ... View Full Review
The French Girl
It was supposed to be a final celebration for six British graduates, a French getaway, until she arrived. As they leave Oxford five privileged graduates and one grammar school girl go to a French farmhouse owned by the family of one. Next door is a French girl who has a habit of using their swimming pool. Ten years later her body is found in the well of the farmhouse. The six were the last to see her alive. Naturally the French detective needs to interview them. So the drama unfolds as we are introduced to the five (one was killed ... View Full Review