Let The Bells Ring Out by Milly Johnson BLOG TOUR #LetTheBellsRingOut @millyjohnson @TeamBATC @simonschusterUK @themillyjohnson.bsky.social

 

Seven people, four days and a snowy Christmas on board a luxury sleeper train. This festive season getting away from it all takes on a new meaning…

The Yorkshire Belle is a glamorous steam train all decked out for an escapist festive getaway. It is not supposed to be where a group of people, all trying to get to their destinations for the holidays, will spend their Christmas. 

Seven people, each with their own hopes and dreams, secrets and sorrows, board the train as strangers, but as the snow keeps falling and they realise they are going nowhere fast, they are forced to slow down and embrace the present.

This Christmas on board the Yorkshire Belle, will the friendships they make change their lives forever?

Let The Bells Ring Out by Milly Johnson is published today; 23 October 2025 by Simon and Schuster. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this Blog Tour 

Milly Johnson is celebrating 20 years since her first book deal this year, I think I've been with since book one, and that warm feeling of anticipation when her latest book arrives never goes away. She's an author who writes with warmth and wit and who deals with the issues faced by ordinary people. I've been lucky enough to meet Milly many times, and I always read her books in her voice! 

In Let The Bells Ring Out the story revolves around seven strangers who board a luxury sleeper train called the Yorkshire Belle, each travelling for their own reasons during the run-up to Christmas. But when a snowstorm hits, they become stranded together on the train for four days — unable to reach their destinations, forced to share space and time and slowly open up to one another. 

As the snow builds and the journey stalls, the characters are cut off from the usual distractions (phones don’t work, they are reliant on one radio station) and so the novel leans into the relationships that develop, the secrets that surface, the friendships forged in unusual circumstances.

The author uses this confined setting to explore themes of community, second chances, change and renewal in the spirit of a Christmas story, but with more emotional weight than a purely cosy read.

Setting this story on a glamorous vintage train, decked out for Christmas and then stuck in a snowstorm makes for a strong story. The physical constraint of the actual train creates and enhances the  natural intimacy, tension and reflections of the passengers on board.  And it is the variety and the relatability of those passenger characters that add such depth to this tale. Each one has their own back story. They carry sorrows and secrets and hope and feel as though they could be your own family, or friends. 

This isn't your usual Christmas novel, it is so much more than that. The author shows how extraordinary circumstances can force people to slow down a little, to look at themselves and each other in different ways, and to finally make choices that they have put off. 

Let the Bells Ring Out is a warm, comforting novel that delivers on its promise of festive escape while also offering genuine emotional substance. If you enjoy books that make you feel cosy and hopeful but also allow for reflection, this is one for you. 

Recommended by me. 

Milly Johnson was born, raised and still lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She is the
author of 23 novels, 4 short story ebooks, a book of poetry and a Quick Reads Novella ('The Little Dreams of Lara Cliffe') and was an erstwhile leading copywriter for the greetings card industry. She is also a poet, a professional joke-writer, a newspaper columnist and a seasoned after dinner speaker.

She won the RoNA for Best Romantic Comedy Novel of 2014 and 2016, the Yorkshire Society award for Arts and Culture 2015, the Romantic Novelist Association Outstanding Achievement award in 2020, the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award in 2021 and the Richard Whiteley Award for Inspiration to the County of Yorkshire in 2022.

She writes about love, life, friendships and the importance of community spirit. Her books champion women, their strength and resilience and celebrate her beloved Yorkshire.

Her 23rd Novel 'Let the Bells Ring Out' will be available from October 23rd. Seven strangers going to various places for Christmas are forced together when the train they are travelling on breaks down in a severe snowstorm. They have to spend the whole of Christmas together in the lap of luxury and life will never be the same for any of them again. Because with nothing to do but talk and share their stories, they find that they can give to each other - and take from each other. Never did anyone travel so far without actually going anywhere. The sister book to 'I Wish If Could be Christmas Every Day' - you don't need to read one to enjoy the other, but if you have... you'll spot some cheeky little crossovers.

Do check out Milly's website - it's easy to find if you search for her name. She has a monthly newsletter with insider info, competitions and even birthday celebrations.

The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen BLOG TOUR #TheWinterJob T. @countertenorist @OrendaBooks #Finland #DarkComedy #BookReview

 

Sofas, secrets and a snowbound road to trouble…

Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate. 

A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland. 

With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a bright-yellow Lada.

That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special. 

And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…

A darkly funny and unexpectedly moving thriller about friendship, love and death – The Winter Job tears through the frozen landscape of northern Finland in a beat-up van with bad steering, worse timing, and everything to lose…

The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen is published on 23 October 2025 by Orenda Books and is translated by David Hackston. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy as part of this Blog Tour 

Oh how my heart sings when I begin a new book by Antti Tuomainen. That yearly delight of some Finnish crime, with dark humour and crazy plotting is just the best and once again, he has not let me down. Do take a look at that wonderful cover image too, it is superb and exactly depicts the words inside the book. 

The Winter Job is set in Finland in 1982, and follows Ilmari Nieminen, a recently divorced postal worker who’s made a Christmas promise to his daughter — a piano — but has almost no time and even less money. 

Desperate, he takes a last-minute job transporting a valuable antique sofa all the way to Kilpisjärvi, which is way up north.  Along the way, complications begin: an old friend shows up, repairs are needed, and soon Ilmari realises that someone is tailing him (a Saab 96, a bright-yellow Lada) and what he is transporting may be more than just furniture. 

What starts as a fairly simple job gets tangled with danger, unexpected passengers, secrets, and moral complications. It becomes not just about delivery, but about friendship, love, what a father will do, and how far someone will go when promises are at stake. 

It's a complicated plot, with a cast of characters that arrive on the page to bring joy and laughter, and also anxiety, and some love. 

The wintry Finnish setting is vivid and cold and bleak in just the right way. It amplifies the urgency, the isolation, and the danger. The author does a good job using landscape, weather, and environment not just as backdrop but as part of the tension.

As always, and something that has become something of a trademark for this author; there’s a dark humour throughout. Some moments that are absurd, ironic, or wry and these balance the threat and keep things from becoming unduly grim. It helps the characters feel more real, even sympathetic.

As well as the crime thriller story, The Winter Job looks at responsibility (especially fatherly), morality (does the end justify the means?), trust, friendship, and what sacrifices people make. It’s these deeper human questions that lift the book beyond a mere chase or road trip thriller.

The Winter Job is a highly enjoyable thriller that does more than just deliver thrills. If you like road-trip stories, rugged landscapes, and characters who are flawed but sympathetic, this one is for you. The emotional heart; what a father is willing to do, what friendship means, the cost of promise adds depth. 

Highly recommended by me 

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007
as a suspense author. 

In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award. 

In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. 

Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. 

Palm Beach, Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. It was released as a Netflix film in 2025. 

The Rabbit Factor, the first book in a trilogy that includes The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, is now in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell. The Moose Paradox was a Literary Review and Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award. The trilogy was followed in 2024 by The Burning Stones.

Antti lives in Helsinki with his wife.

X @antti_tuomainen

IG @anttituomainen

Letters From Elena by Anne Hamilton #LettersFromElena @AnneHamilton7 @TheBookSocial @annehamilton.bluesky.social #BookReview

 

April Zarney was ten when her best friend, Elena, disappeared. It was July 1974 and rumour was that Elena’s family had headed back home to war-torn Cyprus.

Thirty years later, with two failed marriages behind her and her career as concert pianist in jeopardy, April decides to run away to Cyprus to find out what really happened to her friend.

Letters From Elena is a love story exploring family, identity and displacement through the faulty memories of three generations of women, each on a journey to make sense of their lives and the world around them.

Letters From Elena by Anne Hamilton was published on 3 July 2025 by Legend Press. My thanks to the author who sent my copy for review. 

I read Anne Hamilton's first novel; The Almost Truth in April last year and adored it. It has become one of my all time favourite books and I recommend it regularly. I was really excited to find out what was next from this talented author and I have not been disappointed. 

When April’s childhood friend Elena disappears without a word in 1974, she’s left with unanswered questions. Thirty years later, now a concert pianist at a crossroads in her life, April travels to Cyprus to uncover what really happened. What she discovers, through old letters, is a story of friendship and displacement.

Anne Hamilton's writing is so powerful, it is full of nostalgia, beautifully observed, and sensitive to the difficult histories of both the characters and the place.

From the opening pages, the author's prose feels so evocative. Her decision to use letters as a structural device is so clever: it gives voice to the child’s perspective in 1974, alongside the present-day narrative. The letters feel authentic.

I was really impressed by the realism of the descriptive prose with the dusty paths and heat-wilted afternoons. April’s search is beautifully handled: not a melodrama but a quietly urgent quest.

The author gives Cyprus and its divided history real depth. The geography, the political tremors, the shifting borders, they’re not just backdrop but part of what haunts April’s journey. 
The story spans three generations of women, all dealing with displacement, belonging, memory and identity. Their voices are so strong.

A beautifully written, quietly moving novel about friendship, loss and the long shadows of memory. Thoughtful, tender and immersive

Anne Hamilton co-founded a UK based charity, Bhola’s Children, supporting a home and school in Bangladesh for disabled children and remains a trustee today. 

She has been sharing her time between the UK and Bangladesh for the past 21 years, which inspired both her memoir and most recent novel, The Almost Truth. 

The unpublished manuscript for The Almost Truth was the winner of the Irish Novel Fair, and a short story adaptation of it is included in an Edinburgh Charity anthology, The People’s City, titled The Finally Tree.

Twitter: @AnneHamilton7

Instagram @annehamilton_author

Bluesky @annehamilton.bluesky.social

Deadman's Pool by Kate Rhodes BLOG TOUR #DeadmansPool @K_RhodesWriter @OrendaBooks #BenKitto #BookReview

 

When Ben Kitto discovers the body of a young woman, buried near the ruins of an old isolation hospital on the island of St Helen's, he is convinced the killer is hiding in plain sight … and determined to take more lives. The breathtaking, gripping new instalment in the Isles of Scilly Mysteries series…

DI BEN KITTO RETURNS…

A SACRED ISLAND

Winter storms lash the Isles of Scilly, when DI Ben Kitto ferries the islands’ priest to St Helen’s. Father Michael intends to live as a pilgrim in the ruins of an ancient church on the uninhabited island, but an ugly secret is buried among the rocks. Digging frantically in the sand, Ben’s dog, Shadow, unearths the emaciated remains of a young woman.

A SHOCKING MURDER

The discovery chills Ben to the core. The victim is Vietnamese, with no clear link to the community – and her killer has made sure that no one will find her easily.

A KILLER ON THE LOOSE

The storm intensifies as the investigation gathers pace. Soon Scilly is cut off by bad weather, with no help available from the mainland. Ben is certain the killer is hiding in plain sight. He knows they are waiting to kill again – and at unimaginable cost.

Deadman's Pool by Kate Rhodes was published on 25 September 2025 by Orenda Books and is book eight in the Isles of Scilly mystery series. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this Blog Tour 

When I've looked back through my reading lists, I've found that I first read Kate Rhodes in 2014, over ten years ago. I haven't read all of her books, and I've certainly not read them in order (naughty!), but I've always enjoyed her style of writing. Deadman's Pool is the latest in the Isles of Scilly mysteries and it is outstanding. I have loved every single page of it.  Even if you've not read any of the others in the series, this one is so well written that I assure you, you won't get lost! 

From the very first page it pulls you straight into the salt-tinged world of DI Ben Kitto; this time, facing perhaps his most emotionally wrenching case yet.

The novel opens with the discovery of the body of a young girl. Buried on the shore of the island of St Mary's. No child has been reported as missing, Ben and his team have no idea how the body got there. 

Almost at the same time, a newborn baby is left on the steps of the police station, bundled carefully in a blanket, with no note, no clue, nothing. Ben feels that the two events feel somehow connected,  though how, he can’t yet see.

As the investigation deepens, whispers begin to surface about illegal migrant workers and conspiracy theories believed by the young people of the islands.   Mai is a young Vietnamese woman whose story runs parallel to Ben's investigation. Her chapters are some of the most haunting and powerful in the book. The author gives her a voice full of fear and fierce determination as she endures captivity and dreams of freedom.

What unfolds is a story about control, exploitation, and survival, but also about compassion and community and about how far people will go to protect one another, even in the darkest of times.

Kate Rhodes paints the Isles of Scilly beautifully. You feel the pull of the tides, the clatter of rain on windows, the creeping unease when the power goes out. It’s both gorgeous and menacing.

Ben Kitto is a detective that I really like, he is decent, a man wrestling with duty and the ghosts of past cases. His home life with Nina and baby Noah adds real heart; he’s not a brooding loner, but a man constantly trying to balance love and justice.

The author juggles the whodunit intrigue with social relevance, making this more than just a murder mystery; it’s a story about people who fall through the cracks, and those who refuse to look away.

Deadman’s Pool is dark, and at times brutal, but it’s also tender and deeply humane. The contrast between Mai’s desperate plight and Ben’s quiet determination is what gives the book its power. By the end, I was emotionally drained; the best kind of crime novel experience.

Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected for Val
McDermid’s New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. 

She has been nominated twice for the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. 

She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.

X @K_RhodesWriter

Genes Don't Lie by Zetta Thomelin BLOG TOUR #GenesDontLie @ZettaThomelin @RandomTTours #BookExtract

 

Genes Don't Lie examines the impact of secrets exposed after a DNA test reveals much more than expected. It begins as a narrative drawing the reader into the story, charting a journey of discovery, then moves into a plan for treatment and support, assisting the reader to make peace with their own story. We learn through stories and sometimes we need to recreate our own. 

With the cheap availability of DNA testing, people are stumbling into knowledge unprepared in unprecedented numbers and there is little help available. Who you think you are is a fragile edifice which can be so easily shattered, yet this sense of identity is vital to our resilience and well-being. This book addresses topics like identity, anger, belonging, grief, shame and family secrets which can affect us all.

Genes Don't Lie by Zetta Thomelin was published on 10 July 2025 by Grosvenor House Publishing. As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today. 

Extract from Genes Don't Lie by Zetta Thomelin

INTRODUCTION

Genes don’t lie, but people do!
With the cheap and easy access to DNA testing now available, more and more people are

discovering they are not who they thought they were or that the make-up of their family has changed. It may have happened to you, and you want to know how to process it. It may have happened to a friend or family member, and you want to help them. I want to create a resource to help others facing such challenges to the sense of self that this brings.

It is not a new experience. In the past, finding out you were adopted would have brought the same challenges. It is now happening, though, on a larger scale. The genie is out of the bottle, and many do not know what to do next.

I had just finished writing my book, The Trauma Effect, about inherited trauma, where I shone a light upon a trauma in my family and examined how this impacted me when a new family story surfaced. I had made my peace with my family past at last, and then I found that my family story was an illusion.

An email popped into my inbox which changed everything. Yet another new family secret, about which I had no inkling, was now bobbing up into the light and I had to deal with it.

Every other book I pick up or TV drama I watch has the twist in the tail of someone discovering through DNA that they were not who they thought they were. With the increasing number of people interested in their ancestry, this can only continue to grow.

I was not the one most affected by my DNA test results; I was still my father’s child, but I discovered I had a half-sister, and it was so hard to know how to support her whilst trying to deal with my own changing landscape.

My story is far from unique. It is a story told up and down the land, but little is written to help with processing the story, the complete reframing of all you believed about your family and who you are. It was hardest, of course, for my sister, who said to me only the other day, ‘Nobody is talking about how it feels to be me, to find out I am someone other than who I thought I was’.

As I find it so therapeutic to write, I decided to write our story, our feelings, our journey, in the hope that if you share this story, you might feel less alone, and it may help your healing. If no such drama has touched your family, then maybe hearing of ours may help you to value your own story.

When I began to write, it automatically fell into the style of discourse with my father at first, a father who had become a stranger to me now. He was not the man I had loved, and I needed to get to know him again. I needed the opportunity to tell him how I felt and, if she would allow it, a little of how my sister felt. Then I could begin to understand it more. As I wrote the first section, it read rather like a novel, and I hoped this would engage the reader to follow the journey towards understanding.

The therapeutic part naturally followed as I delved deeper and deeper into the feelings of everyone concerned. I wanted to understand the emotions involved in such an experience and, very importantly, what identity means to us, as I think it is the challenge to identity that raises so much emotion. As I am a therapist, I then wanted to come up with a plan to help, presenting ideas that I have used with others on a similar path.

If such a thing has not happened in your world, some of the ideas here may still resonate, such as that of identity, loss and family constellations. So here is our story and journey towards healing. I hope that it can help your healing too.

Zetta Thomeli

Chapter one THE BEGINNING

I know about it now and there is no unknowing for any of us. I had a trigger that set my fingers tapping across the keys. It is my first time in France (the land my father loved so much) since I found out about it. My partner and I are in Paris, a city we had enjoyed separately and now want to share with each other.

Paris, the city of romance. The French, the lovers of Europe. Beauty surrounds us in the architecture, the clothes, the smells that escape the cafes and restaurants, and the sounds that pulse out of the organ at L’eglise de St-Pierre; we are entranced. There is the hustle and bustle of the streets of Montmartre, vendors touting their wares. We smile as we wander and wonder, hand in hand.

But beneath the veneer of the city are the cracks, the imperfections, and the slight smell of urine wafting up from the warming streets. The beggar with plastic bags upon his feet for shoes. The stark metaphor in Gare de Lyon, as we search for a map we can take away, to find only a vending machine for condoms, speaks boldly of the reality beneath the charm of the city, a metaphor of the city; maybe there is another metaphor there too.

I see beneath the intellect, the beauty and charm to the cracks beneath, the feet of clay, and relate it to my father, the man within.

We expect too much from the city of lovers; perhaps I expected too much of my father. I loved him too much, and now he has let me down and is not here to face the music, to see the damage he left behind him.

I cannot help but think of him here. When he was alive and I arrived in France, I would always phone and say, ‘Je suis arrivé en France, Papa’, and I would even hear his smile down the line. It is even more present here in Paris, the thought of him, the place he went from boy to man, a place he knew so well, and I want to talk to him, to shout at him. I want answers from him as I go over and over in my mind the stories he used to tell of that French side of his life, mining for clues, looking for signs of the man I did not know but thought I had.

Of course, you know Paris well, Dad. That was where you did your military service, at Le Bourget, the l’armee de l’air, following in your father’s footsteps – and such footsteps they were.

I remember the stories you told me as I wander these streets. You explained why you were here. You could have done your military service in England or in France. As you were aFrench national, you made an active choice to do it in France, but they did their military service at 21 and you were all of 18.

I remember you telling me how the other men teased you when you arrived because of the copious, nay, voluminous underwear that your mother had sent with your kit to make sure your private parts were kept safe from pressure. The men in your hut were tough lads, older than you, wise to the ways of the world. What a boy you must have seemed to them.

You said that rules in France are made to be broken. That triggers some thoughts now. You told me how you climbed over the wall to get off the air base to enjoy the delights of Paris. Did it begin then, I wonder? This young man away from home for the first time, handsome in his uniform, did you discover how women were drawn to you then? How easy it was for you? Too easy, perhaps. I had not thought of it before, so young and with Paris at your feet.

There was that night when you were caught on your way back to the base by an officer when you should not have been out. He piled you and your friends into the back of his car and smuggled you back onto the base. Now that would never happen in England. You would be on short rations for weeks. 

Zetta Thomelin is a therapist in private practice. 

She is involved in the governance of complementary medicine as Chair of BAThH, Vice-Chair of UKCHO and as a Trustee of the Research Council for Complementary Medicine. Prior to her career in therapy, she worked at News International and later in the Third Sector as CEO of Children with AIDS Charity. 

She is the author of three other books:

The Healing Metaphor, Self-Help? Self-Hypnosis! and The Trauma Effect – exploring and resolving inherited trauma..

www.zettathomelin.com

X @ZettaThomelin

IG @thomelinzetta

The Siege by John Sutherland #TheSiege @policecommander @orionbooks @johnsutherland.bsky.social #BookReview

 

Nine hostages. Ten hours. One chance to save them all.

Lee James Connor has found his purpose in life: to follow the teachings of far-right extremist leader, Nicholas Farmer. So when his idol is jailed, he comes up with the perfect plan: take a local immigrant support group hostage until Farmer is released.

Grace Wheatley is no stranger to loneliness having weathered the passing of her husband, whilst being left to raise her son alone. The local support group is her only source of comfort. Until the day Lee James Connor walks in and threatens the existence of everything she's ever known.

Superintendent Alex Lewis may be one of the most experienced hostage negotiators on the force, but there's no such thing as a perfect record. Still haunted by his last case, can he connect with Connor - and save his nine hostages - before it's too late?

The Siege by John Sutherland was published in February 2023 by Orion. I bought my copy at Bay Tales earlier this year and had it signed by the author. 

I listened to author John Sutherland on a panel at Bay Tales Crime Festival earlier this year and was fascinated by his story. I had no idea that police negotiators did that part of their job on a purely voluntary basis, with no pay. It's an incredible thing to have to do, so dangerous and so much depends on you.

I decided that I must read the books and started at the beginning with The Siege, which I bought at Bay Tales and the author signed for me.  I read it whilst on holiday in Corfu last month and was glued to it, it's brilliant read. 

From the first few pages I knew that  The Siege was going to take me somewhere uncomfortable but important. The premise is gripping: nine hostages; ten hours; and a demand that sees ideology, desperation and grief up against the mechanisms of policing and community.  The author's own experiences add such authenticity to the story too.

Told in three voices; the hostage taker Lee James Connor; one of the hostages Grace Wheatley and the negotiator Alex Lewis. These characters have real depth, and I was especially fond of Grace. She's an ordinary person, she has her own grief and for me, she really carries the story.

I found the whole hostage situation really frightening, that realisation that actually, this could and does happen to ordinary people. It's really well handled, with gradual suspense built through short chapters.

Lee James Connor is a fascinating character, it would be so easy to paint him as just evil, but the author does a great job in the portrayal of a man who is angry and feels isolated, despite his horrific views and what he is doing, we are led to think about he got to the position that he's in today which is totally relevant to the times that we are living through now. 

I really liked The Siege. It’s a thriller with heart-felt emotion and is tense, disturbing, but also human. It’s not just about the physical hostage crisis, but the emotional, ideological one. 

If you like thrillers to make you think after, to care about more than just “will they survive?”, then this one is for you. It's a powerful read. Recommended by me. 

John Sutherland joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 1992, serving for more than 25 years,
until his early retirement on medical grounds in 2018. 

Having started out as a uniformed PC, responding to emergencies on the streets of inner London, he rose through the ranks to become a highly respected senior officer. His last operational posting was as the Borough Commander for Southwark. He is an experienced Hostage & Crisis Negotiator, having served on both the national and international cadres.

Since leaving the Met, John has become an established author. His first book,'Blue: A Memoir’, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and his second, ‘Crossing the Line’ was selected as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. His first novel, ‘The Siege’ - which introduced readers to the worlds of police negotiators Alex Lewis and Pip Williams - was published by Orion Fiction in June 2022 and shortlisted for the Specsavers Debut Come Novel of the Year. Its sequel, The Fallen, was published in 2023 to significant critical acclaim and the third book in the series, The Stalking Season, will be released in 2025.

The Writer's Table by Valerie Stivers, illustrated by Katie Tomlinson #TheWritersTable @valerie_reads @Frances_Lincoln @RandomTTours

 

These are the dishes that fuelled great writing. 

Ever wondered what Iris Murdoch might have served for supper, or how Emily Dickinson took her tea? The Writer’s Table brings together dining habits and favourite recipes from some of the world’s most beloved authors, offering a delicious glimpse into their everyday lives and kitchen rituals. 

Each recipe is paired with a short introduction to the author and dish, along with clear instructions and modern ingredients, making it easy to recreate literary comfort food at home. With beautiful illustrations throughout, the book is a feast for the eyes as well as the table making you feel closer to the writers you love. 

Writers and recipes featured include: 

• Leo Tolstoy’s Sour Schi  
• Jane Austen's White Soup
• Colette's Cherry Clafoutis
• Barbara Pym's Toad-in-the-Hole
• Truman Capote's Chicken Hash
• Andrea Camilleri's Sardines a beccafico
  
  

Perfectly giftable, irresistibly browsable and full of charm, The Writer’s Table is a celebration of food, creativity and the simple pleasures that connect us all. A must-have for readers, home cooks and anyone who’s ever wondered what their favourite author had for dinner.

The Writer's Table by Valerie Stivers is published today; 9 October 2025 by Frances Lincoln and is illustrated by Katie Tomlinson. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour 

This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful books that I own. The illustrations are stunning, it's the kind of book that you can pick up at any time and discover something new. 

I honestly think this book was made for me, I'm an avid recipe book collector and reader, and of course, I love fiction and anything to do with literature. A combination of food created and loved by famous authors, or featured in their books is just perfection. 

Katie Tomlinson's illustrations are stunning. Her style is quite simple line drawings with plenty of colour and expertly portray each of the authors and recipes. 

Valerie Stivers writes a column called 'Eat Your Words' for the Paris Review and in 2017 she began to collect these stories and recipes for her coloumn. 

There is a chatty, friendly feel to the book as she features some authors discussing their various food likes, or things that they've included in their works, instead of an actual recipe. 

From Jane Austen’s White Soup to Truman Capote’s Chicken Hash and Colette’s Cherry Clafoutis, this exquisite literary cookbook features 50 favourite recipes from renowned authors, showcasing the meals that shaped their lives and work, and will make an ideal gift for both food and book lovers. Highly recommended

Valerie Stivers is the literary columnist for UnHerd, and hostess of a popular cooking-from-literaturedinner salon series in New York City. She is the co-host of The Fretful Porpentine: Music & Books podcast, and previously wrote the 'Eat Your Words' column for The Paris Review, in which she developed recipes and cooked from classic novels. She now cooks from Catholic literature for Our Sunday Visitor Magazine, and writes frequently about books for publications such as Compact and First Thing. 

She can be found on Substack as The Writer's Table, on Instagram @ivalleria and on X @valerie_reads

Katie Tomlinson is an award-winning visual artist and illustrator whose work blends bold linework with vibrant colour and narrative flair. With experience across editorial, publishing, and print design, her illustrations have appeared in international campaigns and independent publications alike.