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Liz Robinson - Editorial Expert
LoveReading reviewer since 2014 and former judge of the CWA Gold Dagger
Liz has been an Editorial Expert writing reviews for LoveReading since 2014. Reading has always played a huge part in her life and she happily describes herself as a fully fledged bookworm. By day she works for a charity, and at every other free moment devours books of all genres. She video interviews authors for LoveReading and has previously judged the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger and Crime Fiction in Translation Awards, the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Novel of the Year Award, the Chiddingstone Castle Literary Festival Short Story Competition, and the LoveReading Very Short Story Award. It’s simply all about sharing the book love!
Eternal Life has never looked so stark and unnerving. This debut novel spans a number of genres, from speculative fiction through to family drama, and it hits hard. There are two definite sides to this tale, the very human one of thoughts, feelings, and relationships, and then the future world of regenerative medicine. Author Matthew Aldrich is an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter, the descriptive detailing shows his ability to paint a picture with words. At the beginning a deliberate distance is maintained as the future unfolds. I was able to picture 2070 so very clearly and it was almost painful in its ... View Full Review
Darkly gothic yet empathetic and considered, this historical debut takes a young woman who feels the pain of her bones growing almost daily, and places her in an atmospheric Victorian London with people who set out to use and abuse her. Author Fiona Goggin writes with a perceptive and compassionate pen. She not only has the ability to bring the time period to vibrant bustling life, she also adds humanity to all of the characters, even those who feel like the villains of the piece. The characters from the Pre-Raphaelites and Freak Show, so different yet similar, add an edge ... View Full Review
I always welcome a Sarah Morgan Christmas treat, I know I can rely on an oh-so absorbing story, fascinating characters, and oodles of festive charm. Widow Mabel and her cats are ready for the winter storm about to hit Vermont on the east coast of the United States, but she doesn’t expect Brooke, her husband Matt and their two children, or work colleagues Izzy and Jason to ask for shelter as the snow and winds blast her beautiful but isolated home. This multi-generational story works really well, from the children through to the older Mabel, the different perspectives ... View Full Review
With high energy and a fabulously devious plot, MI6’s Q returns, this time assisting the police investigate the killing of a tech millionaire. Forming part of the Q Mysteries, the debut in the series Quantum of Menace was a LoveReading Star Book and beautifully set Q up as a main character in his own right. The Man with the Golden Compass really seals the deal, taking a side step away from cosy it confirms Q as one of the most ingenious amateur detectives on the block. Vaseem Khan is one of my favourite authors, and I can highly ... View Full Review
A lovely, insightful, helpful and interesting guide about the writing of memoir which offers so much more to the interested reader. I’m not a writer, I am a reader, and I absolutely loved this book. The author, Lily Dunn is a memoirist, teacher, and mentor, and it shows in her generosity as she opens her thoughts and expertise. She exclaims of memoir: “I love its intimate nature, and the way it connects lives, it’s frankness and dedication to honesty, the satisfaction in the small voice at the back of my mind that tells me while ... View Full Review
Loved, loved, loved this smart and witty relationship tale that’s also a love story of the written word. Literary critic Selina Chan sends author Parker Navarro into a spiral of despair when she accuses his second novel of: “subjecting the reader to hundreds of pages of shapeless musings”, worse still, she declared his debut as a: “stupefying misfire”. What follows is a feud that goes viral, however a snowed in Christmas leads to each reconsidering their original feelings.
This is the debut adult novel from author Rioghnach Robinson, she writes with a beautiful freedom ... View Full Review
A slow-burn study of excess and toxicity, where a decision whether to or not blend into the working environment may have disastrous consequences. American Skye moves to Amsterdam and joins a company that lives by its contradictory slogans and party atmosphere. Adrift and lonely she finds herself on the edge of the high flyers and when scandal rears its head, faces some uncomfortable truths. This is a fascinating read, there are character flaws aplenty, so an authentic gritty feeling overlays the story. I felt as though Sky could be the girl-next-door, eager to please and hungering acceptance she tells her ... View Full Review
Gosh, this is worthwhile and challenging read, both in terms of how it made me feel and how it made me think.
Debut author Paul Brand, award-winning broadcaster and journalist, writes with an assured yet compassionate hand: “In two decades as a journalist, I have never encountered a debate with higher stakes”.
He continues: “Every person I have met and every expert I have interviewed has left me questioning my own view of the politics, ethics and humanity of what has widely become known as assisted dying. What would I want for myself, and what should I ... View Full Review
This book called out to my very being, as historian Sarah Clegg delves into the true darkness sitting behind fairy myths and stories. I am a book collector of all things fae and absolutely delight in fiction and non fiction appearances of these ambiguous beings.
The timeline at the start of this book is fascinating, starting in 3000BC and working forwards through the centuries detailing manuscripts, texts, novels, witch hunts, trials, and rebellions. Twelve chapters then explore types of fairies and various locations in Europe where stories of fairies have run riot.
Sarah Clegg fully understands the pull of the ... View Full Review
Absolutely, completely, and utterly glorious! Time travel has never been so believable or addictive. Knowing the world will come to end, seeing your own corpse, and trying to prevent a potentially catastrophic rupture in history, are all part and parcel of being a traveller through time.
Award-winning author Claire North is beautifully creative and eloquent. Look back over her novels recommended by the LoveReading team and you will see four different editorial experts singing her praises. Her last novel, Slow Gods, was brilliantly original and epic in construction as a super nova event wiped out planets and civilisations.
Here we ... View Full Review
A beautiful melded mix of a monthly allotment diary, memoir of grief, and celebration of growing, love, and fatherhood. The author, Thom Eagle, is a writer, chef and fermenter, his book First Catch, won the Fortnum & Mason Debut Food Book 2019.
While the author says his first private draft of The Allotment Diaries, the account of his first and his father’s last year on the allotment, was brutal and potentially a form of catharsis after his father’s death, it is absolutely clear that every page is imbued with the essence of his father who kept an ... View Full Review
I can highly recommend these thirteen (such a perfect number) wickedly wonderful and original short stories by some of our best writers of the ghostly and supernatural.
This collection of tales is by the same creators of the fabulous LoveReading Star Book The Winter Spirits which concentrated on ghostly stories over the Christmas period, and The Haunting Season which delighted our Winter 2021 Guest Editor Carole Matthews who chose and described it as: “Perfect bite-sized pieces of supernatural scariness”.
The author's celebrating the witching hour are at their top of their game, and I actively hunt down books ... View Full Review
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