Review by Sally Shaw of "The Longest Day" by Lisa Williams

The Longest Day is Lisa Williams's debut novella, each page holding exactly one hundred words. The one-hundred word stories are set in a tower block in Leicester: "Longhope House rises into an ecru sky with the railway station tucked at her feet. She looks tired, her concrete curves haven’t been tattooed with a fancy new mural." These words convey the status of the flats and the people that reside in each. The novella is set on 21st June 2019, the longest day of the year, and allows the residents of the tower block to speak.

The way Williams has formatted the book, each page having flat number, title and time reminded me of 253 by Geoff Ryman. As I read, I was curious to find out the relevance of the flat numbers, because Williams hasn’t set the stories in flat order: flat 204, for instance, is followed by flat 602. For me as I read, it was as though I was running up and down the stairs to each of the flats, to find their stories. I tried to hold each story in my mind's eye, searching for connections to individual residents, some of which I found, others I may have missed so fleeting were they. I liked the layout of each page: the words, page centre, enabled me to access each sentence and absorb their full impact. 

The stories within each flat are like flash cards that may show who the resident is, why they are there, their past, their sadness, age, family, work, personality, circumstance and more. Williams packs enormous detail into each sentence: "Renee is planning her funeral. She’s reading through the hymn-list again. She’s told no one about this but has detailed it all in a red notepad bought for 3/6 in Woolies. It still has the price sticker on it." In these three sentences I gain an insight into Renee’s age, that she’s a private person and holds a fear of death and her wishes not being known. As the story of each flat unfolds I find moments of humanity, conveyed by words that portray the underbelly of circumstance and uncover the predators waiting to pounce. Flat 505 "the mobile hairdresser" has a gentle beginning, and tells the story of Betty, her hair downy thin. The hairdresser sees the beauty of Betty, and doesn’t draw attention to "a peaches fuzz over a shrimp pink scalp." Betty is taken back to beehives, gossip and herself, in a story of untold truth and unfelt age. 

These stories can be read as isolated vignettes to reflect on, and yet as I mentioned earlier I searched for threads that pull them together. Flat 903 and 205 are threaded to flat 1305, the actions of whom cause harm and disappointment, demonstrating the ramifications of circumstance. Taken as a whole the stories form a collage of the lives of the people who dwell within the tower block. 

The Longest Day is a complex read, and there’s beauty to be found amongst the harshness and sometimes foul aspects of life for the inhabitants of Longhope House. I wrote down my thoughts after reading the last page. I discovered glimpses of community but in the main this had been stripped away, the post left in pigeon holes, the milk not delivered to flat doors, the demise of the caretaker. It made me consider how and why people are housed in run-down tower blocks. Are they selected because they are vulnerable, have no fight, no right to ask for better? Williams has provided an insight into the lives of those hidden away and maybe The Longest Day will bring these issues into the day light. 

The Longest Day is a book that can be read as a whole, or read story by story to be thought about, enabling you to see the individual people living in those tower blocks you pass rushing for the train.

About the reviewer
Sally has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including the Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. Sally lives in the countryside. 

You can read more about The Longest Day by Lisa Williams on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Mariella Bucci of Edinburgh International Book Festival, Livestream 2026

In the third week of August, I had a fantastic and educational week attending a series of livestream talks by the Edinburgh International Book Festival. This accessible alternative to travelling to the city was reasonably priced with a Pay What You Want model, and straightforward navigation from email links to the website livestreams. Some highlights this year included The Front List with John Grisham, Lady Brenda Hale, and Maggie O’Farrell on her new novel, Land.

As a feminist fantasy lover, two talks stood out as the most engaging and interesting. Saara El-Arifi and Nikita Gill discussed their approach in their respective novels on the mythological figures of Cleopatra and Hekate from the hilarious and simple place of "rage." For El-Arifi as a Black British author, being able to reclaim Cleopatra’s narrative was important, and was met with the constant question – "but who is her great love, Mark Antony or Julius Caesar?" Without spoiling, El-Arifi’s justified response was found in another place entirely. Gill, meanwhile, illustrated how the moving story of Hekate crossing Hades to rescue her child bore striking resemblance to contemporary refugee crises, which gave her a powerful personal entry point into Hekate’s character. 

Samantha Shannon was a warm and encouraging voice to all aspiring authors, providing a wealth of advice from her long fantasy career. I really enjoyed her insight into the sticky moniker of a "strong female character" – after publishing The Bone Season, she was often asked why she’d chosen to write a "weak" female character, which Shannon pushed back on. She reflected how at the time, the two most popular female characters were Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, with the former branded "weak" but the latter "strong." Shannon theorised this is because the more emotional Bella is traditionally feminine, while Katniss embodies masculine traits, and argued that female emotion carries its own kind of strength that deserves just as much respect.

A final, funny thread that wove between both talks was how all three authors, to quote verbatim, "had beef with" different male historians from their research. For El-Arifi, it was the hypersexual, seductive version of Cleopatra written by Plutarch in Parallel Lives; for Gill, the poet Hesiod who vilified every goddess except Hekate because she stood by Zeus; and for Shannon, the Elizabethan writer Richard Johnson and his racialised, misogynistic portrayal of the princess in the tale of George and the Dragon, from which The Priory of the Orange Tree was inspired. All these anecdotes served as a reminder of two things for any aspiring writer: the importance of research, but also the ability to read between the wider context and find a fresh perspective on historical interpretations.

Overall, I had a great time at all the talks I attended, with these two as the standout highlights. I would recommend anyone who has the opportunity to go to the Edinburgh International Book Festival in person to do so, as I did myself a few years ago, especially when the festival is on at the same time as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Between the sublime shadow of Edinburgh Castle and the sparkling interiors of Holyroodhouse, independent theatre bursting from every alleyway and authors philosophising in halls and libraries, Edinburgh in August is a vibrant cultural mosaic every creative should experience at least once in their lifetime.

About the reviewer
Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Zbigniew Mirosławski of "Równolegości / Parallelism" by Anna Maria Mickiewicz

The release of the 40th anniversary of edition of this literary work is an important event. It is entitled Równolegości / Parallelism. The author runs the Literary Waves Publishing House. She is a member of the English and Polish Pen Club. She has been awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Her poems have received awards in competitions in Great Britain and Italy. 

The introduction to the latest work is written by Amelia Serraller Calyo from Spain. It begins with the poem "they were not the ones." The unspecified "they ... ordered the trees to be silent" and "gagged the birds." This is a reminiscence from 1985. The next piece "my mother" is about hard work, serving to help others. The poem entitled "secret of the manuscript" written in Oxford is a reflection on the atmosphere at the ancient university: among flowers, fountains, courtyards. All this opens up "spaces deafened." "An Angel in London" tells about a meeting with a young seller of carrots and tomatoes. With a pale complexion, with "wings a bit chipped," he seems to be out of place. 

Human fates unfold differently. This angel still faces the challenge ahead of him: of discovering himself while abroad. Walking around London, we wander with Mickiewicz to Regent's Park. We come across the moment of a proposal. He is among the invisible clouds, she is "tangled by a rose muslin." Their time together will be measured by a clock on a Victorian tower. We will notice a jaybird "full of fear." 

The poet travels around the world, visits California, the Cornish moors, the blue-drenched hills of the Greek sea, and reads carefully Joseph Conrad’s English writings. We learn about the encoded emotions of a mother who lost her son; she writes about it sparingly, with great distance but also with pain that cannot be hidden. It is embedded in the description of simple actions. What did he do, what did he not do; he "did not even drink water / but fed the cat / said goodbye to his mother / he adjusted his suit." Is shrapnel of the day in Aleksandra Palace like grenade shrapnel? Is it the arrival of a spring or of a war? The streets rumble, the puddles light up. They sparkle. A blooming bouquet, a green tree are enough to create a spring poem. At Forty Hall manor "the platonic soul opens spaces," an ocean breeze appears, and "time strokes the air tenderly / the sluggish sun treads on the waves of the stream." 

The texts written abroad and those from home (memories or longings) create parallels. Now we know the reason for the book's title. The poem "Lublin counterpoints" recalls an old craftsman, Jan, who painted church arcades, and Stanisław, a carpenter. Their works have outlived their masters. Their silhouettes are remembered only by "the old ladies who peek out from behind the curtains." The action jumps to Manchester. Here we meet Chopin. We empathize with his mood. It is obvious that, suffering from lung disease, "he did not like the smog / … damp English weather," and crowded streets. Listening to the concert of the "Raindrop Prelude," we understand the loneliness of the genius, we admire the drops of music, like rain dripping "from his thin fingers, rapidly." In France, we get to know "walls of Aigues-Mortes." Ocne the only 13th century French port, it has now its moments of glory behind it. "An overgrown beach / a trodden grass / not knowing the scratching mowers' are a memento of departing into the void, like the crusades, the sixth and seventh, which set off from here. 

The juxtaposition of Socrates and Jaspers implies a comparison of faith in miraculous events and the self. The former will return to us in poems – "Socrates' cold gardeners" and "About the mystery of time." Everything is short-lived. Drinking coffee quickly on the Berkeley hills, we can only pretend that "we are still sipping something aromatic." Truly, drinking it during a meeting that is at the same time a short farewell, we do not have a moment to lose. 

An experience that is incomprehensible to "those who did pass across" but also to those "who did not pass across" is the state of war, whether it is a coup d'état or spruces in the Estonian forest broken like matches. They can be compared to broken souls. Echoes of such experiences slowly fade away, and we "put on earmuffs / silencing wars," opening the borders of independence. This is a reminiscence from London in 2024, 44 years after 1981, after General Jaruzelski's coup. 

Several texts are dedicated to personal experiences, for example the poem "birthday sun," another entitled "Was it worth it?" as well as "My Victorian house," and "I will return to you." In sum, this is another interesting volume, giving an idea of the scope of the poet’s work. 

The section "With a Reviewer's Pen" complements the poems very well. Here, we find the statements of Prof. Urszula Chowaniec, who emphasizes the compression of the poetic stanzas. Katarzyna Kado, herself a poet publishing, among others, in the Lublin’s Akant, draws attention to the alienation visible in the texts of Anna Maria Mickiewicz. Krzysztof Muszkowski, a veteran of the 17th Lviv Regiment and the 300th Mazovian Land Squadron, but also the secretary of Mieczysław Grydzewski, writes about the poet's emotions enclosed in "poetic landscapes." Dr Teresa Podemska-Abt from the antipodes writes about taming the world, with references to Polish and European culture. Dr Tomasz Niedokos, literary scholar, lecturer, researching the history of England, British media, and historical inspirations for cultural texts, draws attention to adaptation in the new country, drawing from the experiences of two cultures. Ted Smith-Orr notices Mickiewicz's "London Manuscript" and writes about "an emigrant poet ... who looks at her new surroundings" and describes her observations as "enlightening and bold." Krystyna Konecka reviews the volume Between Lublin and London. Selected Poems, writing about memory, longing, their magical influence on poetry, the economy of language, refined metre, and lightness of impression. Prof. Jerzy F. Fert develops the theme of symbolism contained in a minimum of words. Tom Wachtel from London appreciates conciseness, conveying the specifics and atmosphere of places. Adam Siemieńczyk appreciates the conversation "with the crying Socrates," its ancient and contemporary references. David Clark captures this poetry by calling it the "snapshots of fleeting moments," and comments on the meticulousness and "world of the inner self" of the poet. 

In this distinguished choir of reviewers, I was delighted to find some space for a few sentences of my own. I am enchanted by the apparent distance, responsibility for every word, consummate mastery, faithfulness of descriptions and identification with Englishness. On re-reading the poems in the collection Parallelisms, I recommend them to all lovers of lyrical speech and experts in Polish-British relations.  

About the reviewer

Zbigniew Mirosławski, born in Wadowice in 1958, is a poet, historian, editor. He graduated from Jagiellonian University. He is the author of 21 volumes of poetry and the prose works Day by Day and Family Stories. His poems have been translated into 13 languages and published internationally in literary magazines and anthologies, including International Writer’s Journal (USA), The Polish Review (UK), Polonika (Austria), and World Poets (Serbia). He has received numerous literary awards, including the Honorary Certificate of the Guido Gozzani Competition in Turin (2023), and distinctions from literary journals in Greece and China. He is the editor of the literary magazine Aspiracje (Aspirations). His cultural distinctions include the Meritorious Cultural Activist Badge, the Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service to Polish Culture, the Medal of the National Education Commission (2025), the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw Medal, and the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Review by Jessica Mookherjee of "Darling Blue" by Sarah James

Darling Blue is a poetry collection that creates its own world. We follow a woman through galleries and paintings, gradually discovering who she is and what she is doing in this world of art galleries, secret trysts and obsession with a man whom she names Blue. Paintings become ways of understanding what she cannot understand directly. We begin, as she does, to search for Blue everywhere.

Halfway through the first section of Sarah James’s Darling Blue, I realised I had been reading it wrongly. I had been judging the poems one by one: some I admired, others seemed more conventional, accomplished ekphrastic poems. But suddenly I found myself wanting urgently to know what happened next. I was reading a poetry collection as if it were a novel. And that was when I understood: the collection is the poem.

James is particularly good at allowing later poems to alter the experience of her earlier ones. The book is a palimpsest: meanings are written over but never completely erased. Walter Crane’s Neptune’s Horses recurs throughout. Initially its untameable horse offers an exhilarating image of freedom. Later, after the narrator admits that she failed to escape Blue’s grip, the same image cannot mean quite the same thing. By the time she becomes "More Than Neptune’s Horse," we’ve travelled too far with her to accept untameability quite at face value. In that way, the collection itself becomes an artwork.

The narrator repeatedly understands herself, only to understand herself differently several poems later. She leaves her younger self behind, then acknowledges: "I am no longer her, / and yet, part of her is still me."

Looking is one of the collection’s central actions. James’s narrator doesn’t passively describe paintings; she interferes with them. She wonders what their women are really thinking and questions the stories art history has given them. In If they looked more closely, Waterhouse’s Juliet is no longer necessarily dreaming of Romeo. Her blue necklace can be "clutched / and fingered," but beneath it is the woman’s own "unquenchable" redness. Gradually a colour grammar develops. Blue is the lover, but also something unknowable; red belongs increasingly to the narrator, full of body and appetite.

As we read the book, it begins to teach us how to read it. It’s an elegant lesson in what a whole collection can do, rather than simply being a series of competent or excellent poems. Darling Blue gives us ekphrasis, yes, but as an act of creating a woman’s inner life: we want the paintings to decode her. Then there are prose-poem heartbreaks when reality crashes in, and the epistolary poems addressed to Blue. These three registers - ekphrasis, prose poem and epistolary - become part of the narrator’s own construction. 

I came to trust the narrator’s contradictions. She stops writing to Blue, then writes another letter. They feel less like unreliability than the ordinary instability of the stories we make about our lives.

Another theme is power. The power relations are complicated. Blue has the wife, home and public life, while the narrator receives fragments: hotel rooms, disappearing messages, postcards from paintings they have seen together. In one of the saddest passages, she arranges those postcards in her flat: "A collage of our time / together, without us in it."

Yet she is not simply Blue’s victim. She looks at him, anatomises him, makes him into material. "In my head now, at least, I make him my muse instead," she says in the poem "Questions."

There are revelations about who she is which make the construction of the collection suddenly feel inevitable. I don’t want to give too much away, but her relationship with art is more than that of an interested observer. Meaning accumulates in the spaces between artworks. The collection is also an exhibition, and we walk through it with her.

The later poems deepen the book considerably. Blue begins to disappear. Blank space appears, and so do a son and another man. In "A father," love consists of wiping noses, holding sick bowls, scrubbing vomit and helping with homework: not romantic spectacle but attention and repetition. In "Unstoppable," the narrator turns from paintings "behind glass / and framed with dead wood" towards her living son, whose eyes contain "whole worlds / which haven’t yet been painted."

But James doesn’t make domesticity the cure for dangerous passion. In "Before something burns or bursts," after John Collier’s Priestess of Delphi, the woman is again incandescent, surrounded by red, suspended in "all / possible futures." By now the intensity that once seemed to belong to Blue looks as though it may always have belonged to the narrator herself.

Near the end, "Restoration" gives us the narrator at her most knowing. Paintings fade; restoration uncovers details but cannot return an artwork to its original state. "Some loves can live on, undamaged, beyond their initial context,” she concludes, “but it takes more than just a shared passion."

In the final poem, "My last unsent letter," Blue is summer sky, lake and sea, shared now with the man with whom the narrator has made another life. But I don’t entirely believe her, and I don’t think the collection requires me to. "I still carry a small flame of you with me," she admits. Even the title "My last unsent letter" makes "last" feel provisional. Which of us has been left untouched by the people we have loved?

Then comes one of the book’s most satisfying returns. Up close, blue is "distance’s illusion." The sea that Neptune’s Horse appeared to drink at the beginning was never something that could be swallowed or possessed.

So Blue does not disappear. Nor does the woman who wanted him.

I finished the book thinking about the whole thing rather than individual poems: about what had happened to me as a reader while moving through its paintings, and how differently I understood the first pages by the time I reached the last. The collection is the poem. And it is a very good one.

About the reviewer
Jessica Mookherjee is the author of three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press, Flood, Tigress (shortlisted for Ledbury Prize) and Notes from a Shipwreck. Her fourth collection Universe is an Animal is due for publication in November 2026 with Nine Arches Press. She’s also the author of Desire Lines (Broken Sleep Books). She works in public health and lives in Kent. 

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Everything Is Tuberculosis" by John Green

In many ways, the writings of the Green brothers have grown up with me. While I could never really call myself a ‘fan’ of their YouTube content, more like a casual enjoyer, I was perfectly primed at thirteen to devour all of John Green’s YA novels, and again when Hank Green released his sci-fi duology a few years later. 

This book marks John Green’s second entry into adult non-fiction after The Anthropocene Reviewed in 2021, tracing the progress and persistence of tuberculosis throughout human history, and comes at a time when I am far older and seeking more depth to the literature I consume. Reading like part autobiography, part medical journal, part anthropology lesson, Green expertly weaves the intimate story of a young TB patient from Sierra Leone, Henry, throughout this book as both an anchor point for the reader and a persistent reminder of the very real and human consequences when disease treatment becomes socio-political. The stories of Henry’s mother and his doctor, that exemplified the monumental barriers those in developing countries face compared to the laughably easy treatment of TB in first-world countries, were especially moving. 

I was also fascinated by the chapter on the romanticism of TB, connected with hundreds of artists and creatives throughout history, culminating in the beautiful poetry written by Henry in the depths of his illness. If you’re hesitant on non-fiction, I would highly recommend this as a starting point, and especially the audiobook narrated by Green himself.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Rottenheart" by Kat Dunn

After chomping through Hungerstone and going to Kat Dunn’s author talk in Birmingham Waterstones, I picked up a signed copy of her new novel Rottenheart, a Victorian sapphic retelling of Hamlet with a fun gender-swapped twist. Somehow, despite Hungerstone being a violent vampiric tale, this one felt notably darker, which perhaps makes sense considering the prevalent themes of grief, hysteria and corruption woven through the original play and this Victorian version. 

Something that really stuck with me during Dunn’s talk was the concept of ghosts as the mind becoming an unreliable narrator, conjuring visions that reflect a tormented inner psyche and the terror of no longer being able to trust your own senses. Without spoiling the ending, this certainly comes through clearly in Rottenheart, with Odette’s haunting grief turning her to a revenge-driven shadow of herself, and the tragic Cecilia as she tries to pull her lover back from the brink. 

I particularly enjoyed the disjointed structure of the novel, jumping back and forth in time from either side of Lydia’s death, and how even the villains contained a fraction more nuance and depth compared to those in Hungerstone. My only complaint would be it was a touch long with little action in places, but I suppose that is only accurate to the themes of the original play after all – and here, the hesitation actually makes sense considering the gender-swap, and only adds to the poignancy of Odette’s pain as she rails to be understood by a society that discounts her female perspective over and over again.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Hungerstone" by Kat Dunn

I discovered this sapphic retelling of Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu via a YouTube video by one of my favourite cultural analysis creators Shanspeare, titled "Let Women Eat (Flesh): Cannibalism in Fiction." Within two chapters of reading, I experienced the same voracious hunger for this story that both Shania and the novel’s protagonist, Lenore, cannot quell. 

Dunn has a beautiful and intriguing narrative voice, crafting landscape and character and dialogue in scenes that read like haunting Gothic tapestries. Hungerstone is a Bayeux-like narrative that tracks Lenore’s journey towards reclaiming her power, against the backdrop of a life of people-pleasing and suppressing her deepest desires and wants. Like all good Gothic literature – and it was my specialist subject in my Literature degree – the cast is suitably archetypal, from the villainous husband Henry to the waifish, naive friend Cora. But the star of the show is of course, Carmilla herself. Dunn never uses the word "vampire," but she doesn’t need to. Carmilla is romantic, seductive and transgressive, and you feel the shift from annoyance to empowerment in Lenore from Carmilla’s careful encouragement / manipulation.

The novel is medium-paced, with the plot interspersed by flashbacks to Lenore’s childhood, and the ending is appropriately gory and thoroughly satisfying. Even though I read this in the height of summer, I already feel an autumnal, rain-spattered, candlelit re-read coming – as Dunn surely intended.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Nancy Dawkins of "In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens" by Katherine Howey

"Beggin’ pardon, Miss, why’s a respectable young lady like you a-going to the Pleasure Gardens? Don’t you know they has the most prodigious bad reputation, and ain’t no place for a lady unaccompanied?" Katherine Howey’s debut novel, In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, follows Lucinda, a young soldier’s daughter, who arrives in London in the late 1700s after fleeing the American Revolutionary wars. Lucinda begins, it seems, as a typical historical heroine: naïve, thrown into a new and unfamiliar world, tasked with learning a new job as a seamstress. Her forays into society and the meeting of a wealthy gentlemen may set a reader up to believe that a Cinderella story is about to unfold. Perhaps, after meeting with a few trifling difficulties, Lucinda will get married and all will be tied in a neat Austen-like bow? But who is the mysterious doctor, William Browne, who bursts, singing and swinging, onto the page? 

The realities of being a woman in the eighteenth century, and of the harsh divisions of class in that time, become immediately apparent as Lucinda’s fairytale turns dark. A sudden and misunderstood illness strikes Lucinda, leaving her unable to perform her roles, either as a seamstress, or as an eligible woman in society. What follows for Lucinda is a Dickensian fall through the cracks of London. For a modern reader, it is clear that Lucinda’s illness resembles a chronic disability like M. E. or fibromyalgia, but to her contemporaries in the book, her illness is incomprehensible, appearing fabricated even. In Vauxhall pleasure Garden does not shy away from the traumatic realities of being a young woman, alone and disabled, in times gone by. Lucinda is not a perfect heroine, she is frequently disempowered, doesn’t know where to turn, and chooses the wrong people to trust. Nevertheless, she manages to support herself in inventive ways, and forge friendships and a life, however unconventional. 

In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens tells a story that is often missing from historical fiction, the story of a woman who did not, and who because of disability could not, follow the paths laid out for women in that time, but who managed to survive. I finished the novel, the first in a series, ready to read the second, wondering what lies ahead for Lucinda; what really happened to William Browne, will Alex Henderson find her at the Inn, and will she see Jem again?

About the reviewer
Nancy Dawkins is a poet and musician from Leicester. Her writing has been published in print and online, including in The Leicester Literary Review and Heroica. She was shortlisted for the inaugural role of Leicester Poet Laureate in 2025, and was longlisted for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition 2024. 

You can read more about In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens by Katherine Howey on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Sally Shaw of "Under a Pink Sky" by Esther Ghey

Under A Pink Sky is a memoir written by Esther Ghey, that takes the reader into the darkest depths of growing up and an unimaginable death of a child. Ghey guides the reader back into the sunlight and a place of hope through action. 

The title puts Brianna at the heart of the book. Ghey recounts a  moment after the death of her daughter when the sky was a vibrant pink. "'Look!' I exclaim, pointing up. The sky is covered in a thick, undulating pink duvet. It is heartbreakingly beautiful. The slow-flowing canal looks like a strip of pink. Alisha, Wes and I hold each other a little closer. 'She’s here,' I say. 'I can feel her.' How did I know it was her? I really don’t like the colour pink - I used to try my best to get her to wear anything other than pink - but pink was not just a colour to her, it was a way of life. So of course, as with anything to do with my extremely determined child, she would  paint the sky pink, and not just any pink, a French Fancy pink, just to remind me who was still queen." 

As Ghey tells the story of her own teenage years, the effects of her mum becoming a foster parent and the relationship with her mum as a small child, then as a teenager, I found that Ghey was searching for an understanding of what has changed from her childhood to Brianna’s childhood. What makes this so difficult is that Ghey couldn’t find that understanding while Brianna was struggling with growing up and finding her place in the world. Ghey speaks honestly and frankly about her behaviour from the age of eleven, the role education played and the influence of older children. Ghey discovered that playing the cheeky-clown no longer made her peers like her once she moved into high school. "If the cheeky-clown act wasn’t going to work, I would mimic what I had seen at home. I knew how the tough kids talked and I knew the reaction it got. I would not be pushed and shoved in the hallways, so I started to act up. I talked back to teachers to disguise the fact that I couldn’t cope. I would do anything to hide my insecurity, but it really was all an act." As Ghey describes Brianna’s difficulties in school, she questions herself as to why she was unable to identify the similarities of how education impacted her and then her daughter twenty-five years later. 

As the story of Brianna’s life and death unfolds, Ghey tells it from her viewpoint, never assuming she can give Brianna’s opinion. I found her honesty about the mother and daughter relationship touched my heart and helped me understand the complex reality that teenagers find themselves in today. What became clear was the influences the smart phone brought into Brianna’s life and that these were impacting how Brianna saw herself and society. "At school she was relatively safe, but the real bullies were in her pocket. They would follow her into her room and into her head." These bullies take on many forms, but the one thing they all have in common is they lurk within social media. Ghey informs the reader of the dangers of social media, how these platforms are managed to ensure children become addicted. 

Along with the addictive power of social media, the content manipulates teenagers to think and act in ways that are harmful. The way this is achieved and the influences on Brianna and others are beyond the scope of this review. "When she emerged, it was TikTok Brianna, wearing her school skirt provocatively short, lots of make-up and a persona that was being built on social media but with which she strutted into school." This made me question what would Brianna be like without this influence; would she feel the same with different role models from peers, society and history? 

As Brianna moves further into her teenage years she constantly uses her phone, making self-care videos on TikTok, gaining many followers while retreating into her bedroom, led away from her family and friends by social media algorithms. At school the phone dominates her behaviour and her ability to take part in education. Ghey documents their journey through trying to gain support and answers. When Brianna texts her mum that she’s on a bus to meet a friend, Ghey describes why this appeared to be a positive step, unaware this would be the last text.

Through this book I have gained insight into today’s childhood or rather how that childhood is dissolving into the digital world, where your worth is measured by likes, followers and social media challenges. If a child doesn’t have a phone they’re a nobody, yet if they have a phone they’re in danger. Education becomes invisible and the breadcrumbs back to childhood have been devoured by influencers. The message that Ghey gives is we, as parents, siblings, family, friends and society, have to maintain hope through action and love. Ghey, through her organisation The Brianna Ghey Legacy Project, is campaigning for a phone-free education, as well as working alongside side other organisations campaigning to reduce the risks of social media. Under A Pink Sky is relevant to everyone and has educated me about the possible dangers held within my phone. 

 

About the reviewer
Sally has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including the Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. 
Sally lives in the countryside.