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Liz Robinson - Editorial Expert
Liz has been an Editorial Expert writing reviews for LoveReading since 2014. Reading has always played a huge part in her life and she can quite happily chat books all day. She previously spent twenty years working as a member of police support staff, including roles as Criminal Intelligence Analyst, Briefing Officer, and Crime Reduction Advisor. She relishes her time spent exploring all genres of fiction and non fiction. She video reviews her selections for the LoveReading LitFest Festival Favourites and is also a Presenter for their events. Liz has previously judged the Romantic Novelists’ Association Goldsboro Romantic Novel of the Year Award, the Chiddingstone Castle Literary Festival Short Story Competition, the LoveReading Very Short Story Award, and the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger Award. Her next judging stint sees her joining the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Award 2023-2025. She describes herself as a reader, a lover of all things books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @LRLizRobinson.
As always, a delightfully engaging read, this time Isabel is wondering how to deal with an unexpected house guest, difficult book group, and potentially corrupt colleague. Award-winning and best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith has the most eloquent, kindly humoured, and empathetic of pens. He has written several wonderful series and standalone novels. Here we are at book 15 in the Isabel Dalhousie series, of while of course I recommend starting at the beginning, you could easily drop in at The Conditions of Unconditional Love and immediately feel right at home. It feels as though you are witnessing a snapshot in Isabel&... View Full Review
This is such a beautiful book, filled with wild and wonderful thoughts and memories of Shetland over 17 years, it caught me quite unawares. Award-winning author Jen Hadfield is a poet and oh my, her gift with words transports into the eloquence of this autobiography. Shaetlan words and phrases and their meanings are explored, this paired with her own powerful expression and style transports you to her centre of the world. The years flow, from the past into the present, though mostly time ceases to exist. It felt to me as though the author was often testing herself and pursuing her ... View Full Review
This novel will deservedly fly, it took my heart and soul, flinging them out into the void before they floated, span, and plummeted back to earth. When a teenager is abducted, his best friend refuses to stop searching, but when he is found another devastating journey begins. Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End is one of my favourite novels of the last few years, All The Colours of the Dark takes on the baton and disappears with it. Spanning genres it sits within and without; crime, mystery, literary, relationship, and family drama. Chris Whitaker shares an intimate ... View Full Review
This smart, interesting, and very different novels takes trust and grief, folding and twisting it until unrecognisable shapes form in your mind’s eye. A woman wakes to find she is being held captive by an unknown male, both are seeking answers to the death of a girl. Sarah Hilary is one of my go-to authors, she is so astute and provocative, yet also empathetic and thoughtful. This novel explores two sides, and as a reader, seeing from the two different perspectives is fascinating. The first part of the tale is convoluted claustrophobia, I felt hemmed in and at ... View Full Review
What a fabulously readable book this is, author Hannah Pierce writes with the most engaging and comical of pens. She develops a relationship with her home, delightfully named Argie Bargie, and takes you with her through the ups and downs of her life between 2017 and 2021. While it is primarily about living onboard, it also details life as a single female, the difficulties of searching for a job during Covid lockdowns, and her relationships with friends, family, and potential romantic interests. Even if you’ve not used a boat, or find your eyebrows raising at the thought of living on ... View Full Review
Full to overflowing with expression and meaning this is a spirited and dramatic, yet emotionally astute novel. This is a book of love, of response, of energy, a constant flow of articulate reflection and reaction. It is worth noting that while this sits perhaps as a novel of love, it contains within, ferocious battles and torturous deaths. Denis Theriault is an award-winning Canadian author from Montreal, I first met his work when I reviewed the The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman back in 2014 and it has stayed with me, if forced to reveal my favourite books, this would ... View Full Review
This fantasy adventure is full of the fire and ambition of a young woman determined to escape an arranged marriage and make her way in the world. Disney’s Mulan is a ‘happy every after’ retelling of a darker Chinese story. Using the original Mulan tale as a base the author goes a step further, examining the culture of masculine power and what would happen to a motivated and enterprising woman during and after the battle for a kingdom’s survival. I suggest setting aside thoughts of the Disney film if you have seen it, and ... View Full Review
This deliciously devious debut crime novel capers around a suburban London street during 1968. Sitting within, as well as nosy neighbours and amusing twisty tales, are dark thoughts, plots, and murder. It isn’t just murder, other tales join in, though all have a certain level of provocative darkness contained within. Author Gay Marris, has created a number of individual stories, each joining with its siblings to create a monstrously amusing whole. While hugely entertaining, sliding around the humour are real moments of sensitivity, melancholy, and despair. I would find myself snorting with amusement, before sinking into a sad story ... View Full Review
If you are looking for something a little different, then step into this feel-good mystery which is full to overflowing with gentle humour, pointed social commentary, and a delicious plot. Following on from prize-winning and LoveReading Star Book Kalmann, our hero finds himself in trouble with the law and searching for answers about his grandfather who supposedly spied for the Russians. My advice if you haven’t yet, is to start with the first book, as well as being a fabulous read, it also gives the best introduction to Kalmann. I am a huge fan of his, Kalmann quite ... View Full Review
A roaring and fiery start to a new fantasy series where a prophecy declares the Son of Darkness is due to rise. This is a reimagining of Vyasa’s epic and revered Mahabharata from ancient India, it also reminded me of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series in its intricate complexity. The author’s note at the beginning does say to bear in mind that his novel is completely different to what is known about the poem through other books and TV shows. In his newly imagined world, beloved characters will ... View Full Review
Celebrated as a LoveReading Star Book, we rise with thunderous applause for Navola. This is a weighty tome, however I simply danced through it as though it slowly builds, somehow the plot still whipped and sliced through the pages. The city of Navola is ruled in the background by the Regulai bank, Davico di Regulai is being raised to take over but those watching only see an inadequate boy and so the plotting begins. I fell hard from the very first sentence and gloried within the dramatic depths, surfacing with regret yet wonder, as the story came to a close. ... View Full Review
Helpful, uplifting, and motivating, this is the next book in The Healing Power of series, following on from Sound, and Scent. They form such a lovely, kind, and inspiring collection with the choices of text, colour, and illustrations forming a connective whole. In Movement, author Hannah Glancy greets you in the most encouraging and friendly way: “Welcome to a place where exercise matters purely for the joy and enhancement it brings to our lives.” She explains that fitness wasn’t always her passion, tells us why she started to exercise, that she is now a yoga teacher, ... View Full Review
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