Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

     Some time last year, I was in a second hand bookshop, when a title leapt out at me: The Fool Beloved  by Jeffery Farnol.  Regular readers will know how much Robin Hobb's Fool, Beloved, means to me.  So, I simply had to buy the book, just because of its title. I asked Robin Hobb on Twitter if there was any connection between this book and her work, and she said she knew nothing of it.  But she would like to know what it was about.  Now, there is a challenge!  I set about reading the book and finding out what I could about its author. According to Wikipedia: "Jeffery Farnol  (10 February 1878 – 9 August 1952) was a British writer since (sic) 1907 until his death, known for writing more than 40  romance novels , some formulaic and set in the  Georgian Era  or  English Regency  period, and  swashbucklers . He, with  Georgette Heyer , founded the Regency romantic genre." The Fool Beloved was published i...

As I write this, there are only 15 days to go until the UK publication of Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb.  I am a huge fan of the Farseer/Tawny Man trilogies, and especially of the Fool.  I was devasted by how his story was left hanging at the end of Fool's Fate, and am very excited (and somewhat nervous) to see how things will progress in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. Robin Hobb's Fool is one of the all-time great fantasy characters.  However much we get to know him, he will always remain a mystery.  (Is he even truly a he, for a start?)  A self-confessed coward yet courageous, affectionate yet capable of inflicting deep hurt, learned yet a fool, he shifts gender, changes colour and is impossible to pin down.  His love for Fitz is heartbreakingly touching, and his androgyny and insistence that love doesn't require sex make him, for me, one of the great asexual icons. The Fool has influenced me professionally as well as personally.  It i...