Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

I’m in love!! ♥️ I’ve fallen deep in fandom with quirky pirate rom-com, Our Flag Means Death. It’s been so long since I’ve had this kind of a fangirl high that I was starting to worry I no longer had it in me. But fear not! I may have the body of a middle-aged woman, but I have the heart and stomach of an asexual, greygender teenager, with a thing for the Golden Age of Sail, impossible love, and black-clad men who are vulnerable little boys underneath. Comedy. Romance. Representation. What’s not to like?   Fan art by  Anna Hopkinson  I’m not going to give away any spoilers for those who have not yet had the pleasure. But let me just say that Blackbeard and Stede (in the picture above) totally give me Tammo-and-Carlo vibes. (That’s Tammo and Carlo from my forthcoming novel Cage of Nightingales.  I wrote a bit about it in my previous blog .)  Cage is not about pirates, although it is set in a similar period. It has more of a Venetian Carnevale/ Amadeus/Phantom of ...

 I got this list of questions from watching Jen Campbell’s YouTube channel (although someone else created the list). I think it’s mainly aimed at YouTubers, but I’ve adapted it to my own purposes, because it looked like fun.  A selection of books. Best book you’ve read in 2022 so far. How can I possibly choose? I’ve bought a lot of folklore books this year, mostly second-hand, which are all great. A very beautiful, illustrated book of Fairies and Elves . Likewise, an illustrated book of Celtic Pilgrimages. I enjoyed Storyland by Amy Jeffs, which is new this year. I loved The Last Firefox by Lee Newbury.  Best sequel you’ve read. Dark Tides by Philippa Gregory, which is the sequel to Tidelands. I listened to the audiobook version. New releases you haven’t read but want to. So many. The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield. Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman. The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola. To name but three.  Most anticipated releases for the second half of the year....

  It’s Ace Week! A week set apart to raise awareness of identities on the asexual/aromantic spectrum and to campaign on issues that matter to us. For example, why young people should learn about ace-spec identities in school. This year, I was asked by Stonewall to make a 59 second video on that topic, which should appear on their TikTok during this week. But I’ve also been reading. To help with my own writing, I asked around for recommendations of YA fiction with ace representation. Then I bought two of them and had a read. The books in question are: Loveless by Alice Oseman (author of Heartstopper ) and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee. These are two very different books. Loveless is a contemporary story about a girl called Georgia who goes to university hoping to find the big romance that has so far eluded her, but ends up finding herself. The Lady’s Guide  is a historical adventure set in an unspecified part of the 18th century, about a girl called ...

I would like to thank the wonderful people at Waterstones, Bradford Wool Exchange for a brilliant prize that I won a few weeks ago - free lunch and a copy of The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.  You can see the lunch here, right before I ate it! I've now finished reading the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  It's one of those books that is a physical object of desire, before you even start reading the story.  It has maps!  (You've got to love a book with maps.)  Actually, the main protagonist, Isabella, is a cartographer's daughter - hence the ink and stars of the title - and maps play a big part in the story.  The book also has blue and yellow map-themed decoration on every page, and blue writing.  Perfect. The story itself is a children's/teenage fantasy, set on an island called Joya.  According to myth, it used to be a floating island, but is now divided and ruled by a cruel governor.  However, when Isabella's friend goe...