Book Review:  A Single Thread

Book Review: A Single Thread

A Single Thread is a work of historical fiction set between the two world wars, just as Hitler is gaining unprecedented power and adulation. The story revolves around the life of Violet Speedwell, a so-called ‘Surplus Women’, who lost not only her elder...
Book Review:  The Tenth Gift

Book Review: The Tenth Gift

Jane Johnson is a prolific writer of books for both adults and children as well as being a fiction book editor. A trip to North Africa in 2005 investigating a long-buried family legend about the abduction of a family from a Cornish church by Barbary pirates in 1625,...
Book Review:  The Gown

Book Review: The Gown

Cleverly entitled The Gown, this historical novel published by William Morrow Paperbacks in 2018, will almost certainly appeal to fans of the television series The Crown, or anyone interested in the making of one of the most famous wedding gowns of the 20th century...
Medieval Craftsmen Embroiderers

Medieval Craftsmen Embroiderers

Kay Staniland is an English author and embroiderer, with five other titles to her name. This small book, published by British Museum Press, London, in 1991 is a well-researched introduction into the somewhat hazy and indefinite world of medieval embroiderers –...
Book Review:  Threads of Life

Book Review: Threads of Life

Author Clare Hunter was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, with a story published in its 2017 Annual, a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award in 2016 and winner of the Saltire First Book Award for Threads of Life.  Clare is also a sewer, banner...