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Lily Lindon - Editorial Expert
Lily Lindon is a writer and editor living in London. She studied English Literature at Cambridge University, where she was also part of the Footlights comedy group. She was an Editor at Vintage, Penguin Random House, before becoming an editor and mentor at The Novelry. Her debut novel DOUBLE BOOKED ('the bisexual romcom of your wildest dreams', DIVA Magazine) was published in June 2022. She is on Twitter @lily_lindon and Instagram @bookymcbookface.
Head of a matchmaking company, Logical Love, Carla is due to marry the man she had a high 84% match with in a few weeks time. Yet when her superstitious family get her a tarot reading which seems to show her reuniting with an old flame in Europe, Carla is filled with doubt. Carla will go travelling round the world, retracing her younger self’s steps as she tries to find a man who is not just the correct man, but one she feels fully for too.
It’s a classic question and motif in romance stories — ... View Full Review
Kelsey is convinced life would be better if only her best friend Lewis would finally come round to being in love with her. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening — instead he’s mysteriously moving further apart from her. What does she need to do differently?
You don’t often see this kind of relationship represented in stories — or at least, I haven’t read many — of, spoiler alert, friendships where they may have been in love with the other at some points but where the moral is that they are not ... View Full Review
The novel alternates between two time-lines, the events leading up to Esme’s disappearance a year ago, and the ‘present day’, on the night of that event’s anniversary. Both timelines have their own twists and adrenaline (and dramatic murders!) Following a downbeat journalist and a cold-case online celebrity, the book is both an homage and critique of modern true crime obsessives and armchair investigators.
Chilton’s story combines cinematic set-pieces — like the sinister Jack Daw crow costume which a historic murderer wore at the local village fete 30 years ago — with relatable ... View Full Review
So firstly, it’s a brilliant premise. When I’ve been pitching this book to my friends, as I already have been, I describe it along the lines of: ‘on a lesbian retirement resort at the end of the world, a woman decides to throw one last party before she dies, and invites the long lost love of her life. Will they be able to have a happy reunion before it’s all over?’ And the writing delivers — it sparkles with linguistic playfulness, inventive metaphors and believable quippy dialogue.
I read the first ... View Full Review
I really loved this warm, charming romcom debut from Eleanor Vendrell. We’re immediately thrown into the dilemma Phil faces: trying to get her dad out of debt, slick Miles persuades her and her tech-wizard best friend that they can also get back at the gentrified elite who would gatekeep a rare orchid in the first place. Seeing quaint Felborough through Phil’s infiltrating eyes, we get to enjoy the beautiful, whimsical, historical setting while also feeling cynical about it. I enjoyed how the heist is a mix of both haphazard and skilful, allowing the reader to suspend ... View Full Review
The obvious comparison to make with this book is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which the publisher also lists on their press release with the book. (Strangely enough I also felt the same way about The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux – are these similarities intentional from writers and publishers, I wonder?) Fans of those books may well enjoy this one for the same reasons (warning that there are spoilers for both books in the following review!): the sense of a mysterious central celebrity heroine looking back on her life, writing about it, wanting to ... View Full Review
I enjoyed reading this lesbian memoir very much. Roxy Bourdillon has a wonderfully warm and natural voice, it was so easy to want to pick up and keep reading. I’m sure many readers will find this relatable and educational: whether you are someone who has been through similar experiences to Roxy – like being a queer person who attended school under Section 28, being a lesbian trying to date online and in London – or are interested in charting the similarities and differences in the intimate journeys of queer people over the past years. The book is the story ... View Full Review
Readers with potty humour will appreciate Mikhail lightening the academic tone throughout with scatalogical puns and conversational translations of academic language (e.g. chapters on ‘bumfluenza’ and ‘bum-dumplings’).
Mikhail does make multiple comments throughout about the difficulty of ascribing general advice when gut issues are individual and context-dependent, but my sense is that it’s likely that this book would be more helpful for someone who already has a sense of a specific gut-issue that they’re experiencing. As a more general, curious reader, I did find myself finding the advice sometimes seeming ... View Full Review
This time-looping supernatural crime novel is unique and mind-bending (perhaps sometimes to the point where I got pretty lost in what was happening, but I’m not always great at following thrillers even when they’re only operating in linear time!) Our hero is trying to find his recently-deceased sister’s PHD thesis, a manuscript which promises to change the study of history forever – and using his newly discovered ability to see the past to follow clues that she left him – which takes him through a tour of a town obsessed by a ‘Jack-theRipper&... View Full Review
I read this book in one sitting, which I haven’t done in months. The book is not only slim and formatted in extracts that read like poetry fragments, but the story is also utterly compulsive, like retching. Part of its momentum comes from its disturbing content – TW for disordered eating, grooming, and paedophilia – like being unable to look away from a true crime documentary, always wondering if it will go as far as you worry it will. The story of an older male teacher and an outsider female student feels both surprising and horribly inevitable. The ... View Full Review
I think I may have recommended this book to more people than any other in my life. In combination with Oliver Burkeman’s last book, 4000 Weeks, I have definitely recommended it more than any other.
Meditations for Mortals is not about mindfulness or meditation specifically, although the ideas do come up in some of the essays. Rather, it’s Meditations in the sense of ‘thoughts for life’, from procrastination to decision-making, rounding-up familiar self-help advice and adding his astute and candid observations on why they do or don’t help with living our actual ... View Full Review
I must say that I am biased in writing this review because happily Leena is a friend of mine, and that I read an early draft of this book to offer some editorial feedback in exchange for Leena knitting me a cardigan. I hope that this, in and of itself, shows the kind of good egg who is writing this excellent book of tangible, grounded, fun-loving advice.
I am going to summarise some of what I sent to Leena in my feedback to her: In the way that all the best books do, I secretly feel like Leena wrote ... View Full Review
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