dittybox

  The Dark Island of the title is Orkney, which in reality is an archipelago of islands just off the northeast coast of Scotland.  Here in the UK we are familiar with TV detective series (based on the books written by Ann Cleaves) set on the Sheltland Islands in the North Sea to the north of Orkney, and in this book we have a similar backdrop but the main character is a journalist not a detective.   The author Daniel Aubrey wanted to write a book about autism, so the young reporter Freya Sinclair has autistic traits, although she doesn't have a firm diagnosis as she is waiting for the outcome of her assessment.   All through the story-line Freya's behaviour is very challenging for everyone around her as she is driven by her own issues and her colleagues see her as unreliable, unpredictable and self absorbed.  She doesn't follow instructions, she disappears without warning and she ignores her phone when everyone is worried sick about her.  The auth...

  A slightly different post this time.  Instead of the usual few paragraphs about the books I read, this post is about an author talk I attended this week. The last book I read was Adele Parks' 'Just my Luck', and I'm afraid I thought it wasn't really my type of book and I took it back to the library thinking I wouldn't bother with any more from the author.  Anyway, that was a few days ago, and now I've listened to Adele talk about her writing career, I'm beginning to wonder if I haven't been unduly critical, and maybe I should give her another chance. I turned up to the talk with an open mind because you have to admire anyone who can shift 4.5 million copies across 31 languages, and today's fiction market is a very crowded place.  Adele has written a book a year for the last twenty years, and always has one in progress, one in editing and one to be promoted.  At the time of writing, she was just days away from the publication of her latest book,...