Special feature Q&A: Jane Dalton on her first novel THE SECOND LIFE OF ANTHONY B

 

Is someone playing a cruel trick, or is the impossible really happening?

Photograph by Sarah Widdowson

Jane Dalton is a journalist at The Independent, where she writes about animal welfare as well as general news. She previously worked for The Sunday Times, where she was Regional Editor and an occasional book reviewer. She began her career at the Dover Express, where she launched a high-profile campaign against live exports. You can find out more from Jane's website, and read an interview about Jane’s animal activism and reporting here. 

The Second Life of Anthony B is her first novel.

What if the person you loved most sent you one final email?

Eight months after his wife Maggie dies, widower Anthony Bothwell switches on his computer and discovers an email—from her.

The message is so personal it could only have come from Maggie. And its warning is terrifying.

Is someone playing a cruel trick, or is the impossible really happening?

The emails from maggie.bothwell@theafterlife.org.uk keep coming.

As Anthony's certainty about life, death and everything in between begins to crumble, he replies. Their conversations become tender, funny and deeply moving.

But when a long-buried family secret is uncovered, grief turns to betrayal, and Anthony is forced to question everything he thought he knew about the woman he loved.

Then he meets Brooke, a fellow widow who offers him the chance to begin again.

Can Anthony uncover the truth behind the impossible emails—and find the courage to embrace a second chance?

Jane answers questions from Linda Newbery.

Linda: First, congratulations on publishing your debut novel! You’ve worked for years as a journalist for The Independent – is writing fiction something you’ve always wanted to do?

Jane: Thank you so much. Yes, I started writing my first novel when I was eight. It took me a few more decades to finish writing one, though. After a tumultuous journey to publication (more of that later) I was very lucky that my manuscript was picked up by Poolbeg Books, the Irish publisher that first discovered Maeve Binchy. Not that The Second Life of Anthony B is anything like her novels – it’s much weirder than that.

Linda: The novel is based around the striking premise that Anthony receives emails from his dead wife. Did the novel begin with this idea, or did you begin with the intention of writing a novel about bereavement before settling on this device?

Jane: It began with Maggie, an outspoken woman who’s also great fun. That blended with the idea of emails from beyond the grave, because wouldn’t everyone who’s lost someone very suddenly love to be able to have one final conversation with them? I wrote it for everyone who has ever wondered what happens to us after we die and whether any form of consciousness, such as the soul, survives. I also wrote it for anyone who’s ever wondered how their life would have been had they taken a different path; and for anyone who loves garden birds.

Linda: You’ve written a page-turning mystery which is often amusing, sometimes even farcical, and equally often moving, as we experience Anthony’s deep sense of loss alongside his questioning of how well he knew Maggie. Was this a difficult balance to achieve?

Jane: Funnily enough, it wasn’t difficult. The novel is partly about how couples communicate – or fail to, and Maggie and Anthony’s turbulent relationship allowed both the humour and the sorrow to emerge naturally. That’s how it ended up with depth and bittersweet.

Linda: Did the voice of Maggie (forthright, teasing, assertive) come to you immediately? Our sense of Maggie comes mainly through her emails.

Jane: Yes, it did. She was partly based on a former news editor I had who was a veteran tabloid journalist and who had a long-standing challenge for all reporters to find a “naughty vicar”. I exaggerated Maggie a bit to make her more outrageous – but not much more. On the surface Maggie is flamboyant and larger than life, but deep down she’s extremely vulnerable and sensitive. Anthony is quite different – much more grounded, but also sensitive. Each of them is lovable in their own way.

Linda: Anthony is a thoroughly sympathetic character, and I know that readers who’ve been bereaved, or who are close to someone who’s experienced a loss, will find much that resonates. How and why did you decide that your viewpoint character would be a man in his sixties?

Jane: I’m not entirely sure, but just before writing it I’d been reading a lot of high-quality literature that happened to have male lead characters, such as novels by Ian McEwan, David Mitchell and John Updike. I didn’t want to write another popular women’s novel with the tired trope of a young woman and her boyfriend troubles. I wanted to write something non-formulaic, unpredictable and without cliche. And I forced Anthony to question his assumptions about a lot of things, such as whether people have a soul, that life is short and that the course of life after 50 is fixed.

Linda: Anthony investigates the subject of communications from the dead as the novel progresses – was this part of your own research for the novel?

Jane: To some extent, but I wanted the focus of the narrative to be more on the effect on Anthony of receiving the emails, and how they change him as a person, from being a grumpy sceptic convinced his life is over to someone open-minded to new ideas and able to start afresh. Communicating with Maggie forces him to confront things he’s never admitted before and enables him to move on in life.

Linda: Did you have the whole plot mapped out before you began, or did the novel grow in ways that surprised you?

Jane: I didn’t map it out – I wrote it instinctively, and a great many things in it surprised me. Which is appropriate for the story, because I think the same things will surprise readers, too. I never imagined I’d write a creepy psychological suspense story or one about the afterlife or how it’s never too late for fresh starts.

Linda: I know that The Second Life of Anthony B has had a difficult path to publication – through no fault of yours! Can you tell us about that?

Jane: Getting to publication itself was a drama! My first publisher, Neem Tree Press, a lovely women-only company, was taken over by Unbound, a crowd-funding publisher, which, it transpired, was in difficulty, and the new company collapsed into administration just as my novel was due to be published. I was devastated, because I’d put everything I had into writing it.

Linda: At The Independent you specialise in covering issues of animal welfare / exploitation. Do you think this will feature in future novels? Is a second novel under way?

Jane: They say novelists should not write to champion a cause but I am thinking about it. How can I not? Much animal cruelty is so extreme that it needs tackling. In this novel, writing about the symbolism of birds and caring for them was a bonus. I have already drafted a second novel, albeit not part of my three-book contract with Poolbeg, so I have two more to go.

Linda: Thank you, Jane - I'm sure your novel will be much enjoyed by its readers!

The Second Life of Anthony B is published by Poolbeg.

SUMMER ROUND-UP by Adèle, Celia and Linda

Adèle, Celia and Linda give their latest recommendations.

Linda's choices:

Rough Patch by Kathy Slack is a memoir of breakdown and recovery. We're accustomed to the idea that being outside in natural surroundings is beneficial to our wellbeing; in Kathy's case the cure came, specifically, through vegetable growing. Severe depression led to the abandonment of a demanding but unrewarding career in advertising and a retreat to her Cotswolds home. She frequently acknowledges her privilege - loving husband, beautiful house, 'enough money not to worry about money' - yet none of these assets provided a defence against debilitating depression. Dismissing the 'woo' of abstract concepts like gratitude and blessings, she felt her recovery begin with the scattering of seeds, their germination and the resulting harvest. 'I've been unable to do virtually anything for myself ... And here I am now, with a lettuce of my very own.' An engaging read, written with warmth and humour - and there are recipes, too, based on what the garden produces.

Still - a mindful practice for photographers by Paul Sanders is the next book I read, which as it happens is also by an author who held a high-profile job (photography editor for The Times) before experiencing breakdown and recovery. For Paul Sanders, salvation came through photography - and from a particular kind of photography, focusing not so much on the technical side as on the mindfulness of looking, seeing and appreciating. Beautifully produced, Still is illustrated throughout, mainly in black and white but occasionally in colour, with images which will encourage you to go out with your camera, not to 'snap' or 'capture' but to see which images offer themselves to you. Reviewer Graeme Fife has written a fuller appreciation of this book, which will appear soon.

The Angel of St Piran by John Ironmonger: When does ‘conservation’ mask animal exploitation? That question is at the heart of this thrilling novel, set in Tanzania. Young researcher Angel, who lives among wild chimpanzees on a forested island, must fight for the animals’ survival and her own against an organisation that provides wealthy hunters with opportunities to kill. Many of us, revolted by images of hunters posing proudly with their victims, are familiar with the argument that controlled ‘trophy hunting’ can benefit wild animal populations and habitats. There’s no doubting which side John Ironmonger is on; readers will be rooting for Angel and her chimpanzee companions against the pitiless invaders as the situation becomes ever more dangerous. Partly inspired by the work of the great Jane Goodall, the novel explores animal communication and how much we can learn from wild creatures when we’re willing to listen. This was my introduction to an author with a thorough knowledge and passionate feeling for animal issues; I’m now eager to read his earlier novel, The Wager and the Bear. (Note: The Angel of St Piran will be published in September - I read an advance proof.)

Celia's choices:

Keeping The World Away by Margaret Forster: I recently went to a wonderful Gwen John Exhibition at Cardiff Museum and Art Gallery. I was with my Book Club and we were celebrating thirty years of reading and meeting. The book choice was Margaret Forster’s Keeping The World Away. The novel is based on a depiction of a corner of Gwen John’s attic room in Paris. The painting is small, like much of Gwen John’s work and very simple, the light coming through a window onto a plain wooden table which holds a bunch of primroses. The only hint of a human presence is an empty wicker chair, a discarded coat and a parasol but the paintings speak volumes about the woman who painted it.
Gwen John painted several versions of this scene, all slightly different. The novel begins with the artist herself and her life in Paris. She gifts one of these paintings, unsigned, to a friend. The friend loses it, something she regrets for the rest of her life. The painting is restless. Lost, stolen, mislaid, sold, finally bequeathed, it passes from one woman to another. Each woman falls under the painting’s indefinable spell and finds something that speaks to her own need for calm, quiet, solace, a life of one’s own. Forster weaves their very different stories into a complex narrative that spans much of the twentieth century. Ultimately, the novel is a love letter to a painter and her painting. I really admired the novel and it was a very special experience to have it fresh in my mind as I stood in front of A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris.

Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane: The answer to the question posed by the title of Robert Macfarlane’s book is an unequivocal Yes, they are very much alive, should have Rights like other living beings and should be protected as, ultimately, all life depends on them. He takes us with him on three expeditions to rivers in very different parts of the world. The Cloud-forest of Ecuador, a unique environment with astonishing biodiversity, where the rivers are threatened by god mining. Southern India where the rivers are already horribly polluted and dying and the Magpie River in North-eastern Quebec, a magnificent, wild river threatened by damming to produce hydroelectricity. In each place he links up with activists, often Native people, to whom the rivers are alive, have always been alive and who are fighting to save them and all the life that depends on them. Macfarlane is a writer who combines the vivid excitement of the best travel writing with a wide and erudite knowledge of the natural world. His writing is passionately felt, very radical but also profoundly philosophical and deeply spiritual. He brings the book home, literally, to a fragile wellspring in the chalk lands near his home, which is threatened on all sides by building development and he finds hope in its ability to flow anew. He reminds us of our own reverence for rivers and water, remembered in the names of our rivers, the Severn, the Thames and the Dee.

Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume by Silvena Rowe: like Adèle, I love a cookery book. So much so, that my latest novel. Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook (later re-titled Miss Graham's War), has a cookery book at the heart of the narrative (the clue is in the original title). I first saw Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume in my local artisanal baker and coffee shop. I couldn't resist the beautiful cover or the equally beautiful title. I immediately picked it up and was entranced by page after page of fascinating Eastern Mediterranean recipes and lovely illustrations. Part cookery, part history, part travelogue, part memoir, it's my favourite kind of cookery book. Silvena Rowe is of Bulgarian Turkish heritage and her book explores the culinary legacy of the Ottoman Empire which extended from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, into Egypt and North Africa. The Ottomans controlled the Spice Road, their vast empire encompassed many different peoples and their culinary traditions. Silvena Rowe focuses for the main part on the Eastern Mediterranean. Through her recipes, she takes us from Istanbul to Syria, Jordan, the Lebanon, into the Balkans and across to Damascus. She follows in the footsteps of the great Ottoman chefs, who came from every corner of the Empire and gives a modern twist to their recipes. Her book is a celebration of one of the great cuisines of the world.     

Adèle's choices:

Wolves Eat Dogs  by Martin Cruz Smith: does anyone remember a wonderful thriller called Gorky Park? It was published in 1981 and was a huge hit. In it, we were introduced to a Moscow detective called Arkady Renko. I loved it, but somehow never kept up with  the other books in the 11 book series. I watched the movie in 1983 and enjoyed that too  but not as much as the book. 

I was persuaded to download Wolves Eat Dogs by one of those 99p Kindle offers from Amazon. (An aside: I think these offers are a Public Good for readers in these straitened times and I've since downloaded four more.) So I'm working my way through the Renko novels but this one is particularly fascinating. It's set in the Black Zone around Chernobyl and the town of Pripyat and is absolutely gripping, terrifying and full of extraordinary characters. The shadow of the accident hangs like a dark cloud over everything. It's haunting and beautifully written. Arkady is a wonderful creation and I think new readers will enjoy reading about him. I also loved the running gag about how 'Chernobyl' is actually  pronounced  'Chornobyl' in Ukrainian ... of course it's still in Ukraine now and that's a worrying fact in the present circumstances. 

More Home Cooking: A writer returns to the kitchen by Laurie Colvin: I have a thing about Laurie Colvin. This time last year in our round up, I wrote about a novel of hers called A Big Storm Knocked it Over.

This year, I'm writing about this non-fiction book. There's also, obviously, a book called Home Cooking and that's terrific too, but I've read this one most recently.

Laurie Colwin died much too young  and is not nearly well enough known. These days, we're all  used to Substack, in which writers can  reach readers and speak to them directly about their chosen subject. In Colwin's case, we're invited itno her house and more particularly her kitchen. We get glimpses into her daily life and share recipes grouped not chronologically nor alphabetically but by category. These seem totally random. How about American Corn, followed by Jam Anxiety, followed by Three Chocolate Cakes? 

Each new subject gives us recipes embedded in a kind of short story that allows us delighful glimpses into her life. I can't think of a book I own that's more comforting and life enhancing. It arouses many emotions in me, not least a great sadness that she didn't live long enough to write more books. 

I am Pilgrim  by Terry Hayes: at the very end of June, I travelled from Northern Italy to London by train. I needed, therefore, à la Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest, "something sensational" to read. This novel has been on my Kindle for many years but I had, I confess, forgotten all about it. That happens with a Kindle when you don't see the spines of books on your shelves.  It had been recommended by someone in one of the round ups of Holiday Reading choices in the newspapers. 

And what a good choice I made! It's far too long and probably could have had several large chunks cut out of it to some advantage but goodness me, what a hair-raising ride! Breathless, and thrilling and proceeding a a breakneck speed, it nevertheless has time to develop characters in impressive depth.  Pilgrim is our hero, fighting for Good against a terribly evil enemy and you root for him the whole way. It's a souped-up spy thriller, really, and that's not my usual kind of book, but it's so brilliantly done and takes you to such fascinating parts of the world along the way that you give yourself up quite happily to the thrill of the narrative. I’d recommend reading it on Kindle if possible … at over 600 pages long, the paperback version will add a lot of weight to your tote bag or suitcase.

Happy summer reading to all!

WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"One of my books of the year - completely gripping, moving, expertly-paced, with characters that grow on the reader."

Linda Newbery edits Writers Review. Having published widely for young readers, with titles including the Costa category winner Set in Stone, she is now writing adult fiction. Her most recent novel, The One True Thing, was one of the launch titles for Writers Review Publishing last April; it will be followed by The Hide this autumn. 

This is one of my books of the year - completely gripping, moving, expertly-paced, with characters that grow on the reader, and the effects of climate change on landscape and wildlife at its core.

The setting is a remote island, Shearwater, based on Macquarie Island between Tasmania and Antarctica. A research team has been forced to abandon its project because of rising sea levels; central to this work is a subterranean seedbank designed to last far into the future, but now threatened with flooding. Various disasters, slowly revealed, have left the Salt family - father Dom, teenagers Raff and Fen and nine-year-old Orly - as the sole inhabitants of an old lighthouse until a shipwreck survivor, Rowan, is rescued from the sea. Deliberate sabotage of the communication equipment has left the islanders unable to summon help from the mainland; they can only wait for the evacuation ship to arrive in six weeks' time.

At first it's uncertain that Rowan will survive. Nursed by the family, she does, but both she and they are hiding secrets. Why did she set out for the island? What is Dominic hiding in the underground vault? How did his wife die, and what has disturbed Fen so much that she can't sleep indoors?

The seedbank gives a focus on all that's threatened and is a powerful metaphor for the intensive crop farming we already depend on. Time and space make it impossible to save all the seeds - but which should be prioritised? Those already known to be food crops? Those that are fire-resistant? Those whose qualities are as yet unknown? Rowan sees the terrible dilemma this poses: "how to let go of plants and trees and flowers and shrubs, how to let go of the most exquisite, the most unusual, how to let biodiversity die in favour of what humans can eat. Not only do I feel this weight, I see the future laid out before me. A vast stretch of crops and nothing else, nothing wild or natural, and even these neatly planted rows threatened on all sides by flame and flood. All of earth, a wasteland."

There are plenty of thrills, twists and revelations, but what made this such a compelling book for me is its focus on landscape, weather and climate adaptation.  The black sands where the seals breed, watched over by Fen, are disappearing under rising tides; Rowan has experienced the devastating loss by fire of a house and land she had come to love. But there are glorious moments too, including an episode where these characters achieve the seemingly-impossible rescue of a beached humpbacked whale and her calf.

Strong characterisation and a range of viewpoints bring us close to each character in turn: to Dom, who cares passionately for his children and believes himself to be haunted by his dead wife; to the teenagers, who've known little else but solitary island life; to nine-year-old Orly, drawn to Rowan as a substitute mother; to Rowan herself, who at first sees the future only as bleak: 'everything will be drowned, burned or starved' as the climate becomes increasingly inhospitable. Later, through her involvement with the family, she (with the reader) begins to see possibilities for them all when they leave Shearwater. But nothing is certain in this dangerous, changing world. The sinuous plot keeps us hooked to the end of this story with heart and soul as well as thrills. 

Wild Dark Shore is published by Canongate.

More cli-fi:

Q&A with Jane Rogers about her short story collection, Fire-Ready

Q&A with Alison Layland about After the Clearances

Riverflow by Alison Layland

The High House by Jessie Greengrass

The Overstory by Richard Powers, reviewed by Tracey Mathias

WRITERS REVIEW PUBLISHING marks its first birthday

 

Great reissues and new fiction - more on the way this year!

Our new venture, an author publishing collaborative, launched last April with titles by Judith Allnatt, Mary Hoffman and Linda Newbery. Since then we've announced the publication of Sheena Wilkinson's Miss McVey Takes Charge and most recently Dennis Hamley's intriguing Spirit of the Place. 

We're very proud of our small but excellent list, which will soon see the addition of a sixth title: Sue Purkiss's first novel for adults, An Ordinary War, based on her father's experiences as prisoner of war in Poland. Christina Hardyment plans to join us with her next Alyce Chaucer mystery novel, and Linda Newbery's The Hide will appear in October. 

Coming soon on the blog - a piece by Dennis on the inspirations behind Spirit of the Place.

Find out more about our authors and their books on our website. 

See also:

Q&A with Judith Allnatt about The Poet's Wife

Q&A with Mary Hoffman about David: the Unauthorised Autogiography

Q&A with Linda Newbery about The One True Thing

Q&A with Sheena Wilkinson about Miss McVey Takes Charge

LOVE LANE by Patrick Gale, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"Harry is such an endearing character and his story so quietly compelling that I'm sure many readers will want to seek out or revisit his earlier incarnation in A Place Called Winter."

Linda Newbery edits Writers Review. Her latest novel is The One True Thing; her second for Writers Review Publishing, The Hide, will appear later this year.

It's twelve years since readers were introduced to Harry Cane in A Place Called Winter, a novel based on the experiences of Patrick Gale's great grandfather. Caught out in a scandalous affair with a male dancer, Harry leaves wife and baby to seek a new life in Canada. After many threats, trials and hardships, he finds a happy relationship with neighbouring farmer Paul, after first believing that he's been killed in the Great War.

As with all Patrick Gale's work, Love Lane welcomes readers to its pages with warmth and empathy. Although it's not essential to have read the first novel, we pick up Harry's story years later. First he suffers the hurt of seeing his lover marry a woman for the sake of respectability; then, when Paul dies unexpectedly, Harry is manipulated / blackmailed by Paul's stepson into parting with the house and land he's devoted years to, for far less than they're worth. Rootless, and prompted by a letter from his daughter Betty, Harry sails back to England to reunite with family members in Liverpool and Wakefield.

We're now in 1950s England in the company of characters based on the author's grandparents and parents. From these perspectives we see Harry as much older: a scruffy elderly man with meagre possessions who must be accommodated, entertained or tolerated, his future uncertain. Betty's husband Terry is a prison governor with little time for visiting relatives, in one episode deeply preoccupied with preparations for a double execution by hanging of two men in their twenties. The burden of supervising the deaths of these young men whose guilt is far from certain weighs heavily on Terry, yet he's contemptuous of men sent to prison for homosexuality and aghast when he realises that Harry, as described by his sister-in-law, is 'a sexual deviant of the Oscar Wilde sort. Not at all someone I'd consider safe around grandchildren.' 

Loneliness, repression and misunderstanding form a pattern; Harry isn't the only male character to conceal his sexuality. We experience the disappointment of compromise not only from the men but from the women they partner. The sad fate of an affectionate but huge and hungry (at a time of rationing) Pyrenean mountain dog seems to echo these unsatisfactory human accommodations. Throughout, in the background of various family groupings, Harry demonstrates a quiet empathy, often intuiting what others are feeling, or concealing - particularly with his troubled granddaughter, Whistle. But he knows he is in the way; how and where will he spend his remaining years? Several poignant surprises and developments keep us anxious for him until the end. 

As in the novel that preceded this, Mother's Boy, Patrick Gale is adept at conveying the demands and rituals of domestic life of the period: removing stains from clothing with Omo, the novelty of television, making the most of rations, recommending a meal of mashed brains to nourish an ailing baby. Harry is such an endearing character and his story so quietly compelling that I'm sure many readers will want to seek out or revisit his earlier incarnation in A Place Called Winter.

Love Lane is published by Tinder Press.

See also:

Q&A with Patrick about Mother's Boy

Take Nothing With You reviewed by Linda Newbery

Notes from an Exhibition reviewed by Julia Jarman

ETTA LEMON: The Woman who Saved the Birds by Tessa Boase, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

'The RSPB was started by the determined efforts of four women ... but it was Etta's voice that spoke most clearly from the archives."

Photograph by Saira Archer

Linda Newbery edits Writers Review. Her second novel for adults, The One True Thing, was published in 2025 as one of the launch titles for Writers Review Publishing. Her first adult novel, Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon (in paperback as Missing Rose) was a Radio 2 Book Club Choice. In addition to her many fiction titles for young readers she has written This Book is Cruelty Free - Animals and Us, a guide to compassionate living for teenagers and adults. The Hide will be published this autumn. 

As I'm trying not to add to my already overflowing bookshelves, I attended Tessa Boase's event for Rye Arts Festival in September with no intention of buying Etta Lemon. But the talk was so packed, informative and entertaining that I couldn't resist, and bagged a copy before they'd all been snatched from the pile. 

As Tessa Boase points out, birdwatching - especially twitching - is still mainly the preserve of men. But the RSPB was started by the determined efforts of four women: Etta (Margaretta) Lemon, Emily Williamson, Eliza Brightwen and Eliza Phillips, names known to only a small fraction of the million-plus members of what's now one of our largest conservation bodies. Of the four, Boase says, it was always Etta's voice that spoke most clearly from the archives. Yet when she began her research, there was 'not a plaque, not a portrait at headquarters, not a mention in the canon .. It was as if (Etta Lemon) had been completely erased from the conservation narrative.' Part of Boase's achievement has been to right that wrong. Etta now has not only her plaque, and a portrait at RSPB headquarters, but this compelling tribute, too.

The trade in plumage, skins and entire birds in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was horrific, not only because it depended on the mass capture and slaughter of birds in many countries, but also because of harsh conditions for the workers involved in dyeing and tweaking feathers for the millinery industry - a labour force that included children. Millinery was certainly big business; in 1891, Boase records, there were 548 milliners in Greater London alone. Hats were adorned with feathers, wings (classed as 'novelties') and even whole birds; an illustration shows a grotesque hat with what appears to be three budgerigars flattened and fastened around it. 

It's widely known that the great crested grebe was driven to the verge of extinction by fashionable greed for its showy plumage. Whereas once ostrich plumes had been de rigeur, the choice widened alarmingly. Describing a plumage sale in London in 1888, Boase writes: "Here were birds by the shipload." The plumes of snowy egrets were much in demand: an undercover reporter noted that 16,000 packages of these were on sale, along with seven or eight thousand parrots, over 12,000 tiny hummingbirds and "several hundred each of Hawks, Owls, Gulls, Terns, Ducks, Ibises, Finches, Orioles ..." Horrible to contemplate, especially with our hindsight knowledge of the drastic decline in bird populations.

Noting the weekly parade of feathers in church each Sunday, Etta, in her late teens, began her campaign by writing individual letters to 'Feather Bedecked Women', soon joining the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk run by Eliza Phillips, a considerably older woman. The Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in Manchester by another campaigner, Emily Williamson, and began as an all-female group in which members signed a pledge not to wear feathers. These two groups - The Fur, Fin and Feather Folk and the SPB - were brought together by the RSPCA which then, as now, saw itself as a moderate pressure group, distancing itself from 'extremists'. The amalgamation of the two, with Etta as Honorary Secretary, attracted attention, allegiance and - crucially - donations. However, support from highly-placed women led to an exemption for feathers from so-called 'game' birds, the aristocracy not wishing to jeopardise its favoured occupation, field shooting. (Hmm, not much change there, then.) In 1904, with royal approval granted, the SPB became the RSPB.

Boase draws parallels between Etta Lemon and her contemporaries Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett, examining the various approaches to campaign strategies. The suffragettes, drawn mainly from well-heeled women, were highly fashion-conscious and publicity aware. To Etta's distress, bird plumage featured prominently on their headgear - just look at the photographs of suffragette marches - and certainly on the hats of Emmeline Pankhurst herself. (In fact this book was first published as Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather.) There are other ways, too, in which Etta Lemon's campaign was at odds with the suffrage campaign. It seems barely comprehensible to us now that there could have been an anti-suffrage counter-protest, led by women, yet Etta was one of its members. Ironically, as Boase points out, those women who led this faction were bold, articulate and determined - qualities which would have admirably fitted them for politics. 

Although it's taken so long for Etta's conservation work to be acknowledged, she was a public figure in other ways: she became lady mayoress in 1911 when her husband Frank was appointed mayor of Reigate, and during the First World War she took on the management of the Redhill War Hospital, for which she was awarded MBE. 

If it's hard to imagine nowadays that it could have been acceptable to use the feathers of a bird of paradise for adornment, consider one of the modern equivalents: the high status of reptile-skin bags sold by Hermès and other designers, including the iconic 'Birkin' bag. Apparently the singer and actress Jane Birkin wanted her name removed from the item when she learned that crocodiles and alligators were reared for the purpose in bleak conditions and horribly killed, but the name has stuck. If you should want one (though I hope you don't), be prepared to pay upwards of £450,000 - though the real price, of course, is in animal suffering. On the plus side, London Fashion Week declared itself fur-free from 2024, with a ban on wild animal skins too. A ban on the use of wild bird feathers is yet to come. Fashion has a way to go before it can be called cruelty-free, but fortunately there are plenty of latter-day Etta Lemons pushing for change. (Step forward, PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among other organisations.)

Tessa Boase is as engaging a writer as she is a speaker. Her book, an illuminating sweep of social history, illustrates the much-quoted maxim of the anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Etta Lemon: the Woman who Saved the Birds is published by Aurum

Linda Newbery's The One True Thing is published by Writers Review Publishing.

More bird-related reviews:

This Birding Life by Stephen Moss, reviewed by Nick Hodges

12 Birds to Save your Life - Nature's Lessons in Happiness by Charlie Corbett, reviewed by Linda Sargent

A Sweet Wild Note: what we hear when the birds sing by Richard Smyth, reviewed by Dawn Finch

Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds - Stories of Extinctions by Barbara Allen, reviewed by Linda Newbery

BOOKS OF THE YEAR part 2 - chosen by our contributors

Here's our second batch of lovely recommendations. Thank you to our reviewers, all authors and booksellers, for your support - we couldn't do this without you - and also to all our followers. Come back next week for the final selection of great suggestions to kick off your reading for 2026!

Jaffé and Neale Bookshop: Patrick Neale's Book of the Year is The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek: A literary gem describing Russia's invasion of Finland in 1939. It's a thriller about the world's greatest sniper, capturing a forgotten piece of history that resonates strongly today. Rachel White's choice is Ian McEwan's What we can Know: McEwan is back on form with this time-spanning quest that expertly threads a literary mystery of a lost poem through a post-catastrophe future. Can hope be rescued from looming gloom? It's his best work since Atonement and Enduring Love. 

Jaffé and Neale is an independent bookshop in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Lissa Evans: I loved Ghosts of the Farm, by Nicola Chester.  This is a non-fiction book, but it has as much heart and plot as any good novel, interweaving the fascinating diaries of a simply splendid woman farmer in World War 2, with the author’s own passionate relationship with the land, as she attempts to advocate for a nature-depleted countryside.  Within it, there’s a marvellous account of Chester’s teenage years when she worked in stables at the weekends and early mornings, her reward being the opportunity to learn to ride;  I was always envious of those tough, responsible little girls that I glimpsed on the rare occasions I bumped into that world, but I'm not aware that they’ve ever been written about in non-fiction before.  It’s all part of the rich and riveting texture of a book that I’m already looking forward to reading again. 

Lissa Evans' latest novel is Small Bomb at Dimperley, reviewed on the blog by Penny Dolan.

Judith Allnatt recommends The Book of Fire by Christi Lefteri. In Greece, a family is left physically and emotionally scarred by a fire that destroys their home and a vast tract of beautiful forest. They are Irini, a bazouka player, Tasso, an artist, and Chara, a sweet child. The story switches between the present with the family struggling to recover and the past – their terrifying jump from a cliff into the sea to escape and the fire’s aftermath.

Alongside the family’s journey from despair to hope there are questions to answer about who is responsible for the disaster. Is it Mr Monk, the man who illegally started to clear land for his hotel development, the emergency services that were slow to respond, the government, or is climate change and therefore all of us? To what extent are each to blame?

This is a moving book and, as with Lefteri’s other novels The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Songbirds, it brought me near to tears. The author has a clear-sighted view of human destructiveness but also has great compassion.

Judith Allnatt's latest publication is The Poet's Wife

Mary Hoffman: My Book of the Year is Helen Castor’s magnificent The Eagle and the Hart, an imaginative historical comparison of the two first cousins Richard II and Henry IV. Richard, with his effeminacy, love of luxury, preference for male “favourites” and refusal to name an heir, was unsuited to kingship in every way but he was the legitimate next in line to the throne, the remaining son of Edward (later known as the Black Prince). His grandfather, Edward III, and his older brother, another Edward, predeceased him, so Richard became king at the age of ten. 

Henry, on the other hand, had every quality needed in a king. He was intelligent, brave, a champion jouster, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart and the father of four lusty sons and two daughters before tragedy struck and his wife Mary died in her last childbed. But Henry was not the heir. The two men were born within months of each other, married close together and lost their wives only weeks apart. 

Henry’s father was the great magnate John of Gaunt, the richest man in England after the king, Edward III’s third son. They were both mistrusted and overlooked by King Richard. Things came to a head when Richard sent Henry, who had not been tried or convicted for any crime, into exile in France. Gaunt died months later and Richard stole Henry’s great inheritance – all titles and lands. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Historical storytelling at its best.

Mary Hoffman's latest publication is David: the Unauthorised Autobiography.

From Cathy Cassidy: This is Happiness by Niall Williams had me hooked from the first sentence. Fiction disguised as memoir, it's light on plot but brimful of heart, humanity, grief and love, a kind of time machine taking you back to 1950s rural Ireland. Both place and character are drawn perfectly, and the prose is clean, clever and beautiful in its simplicity. The novel charts the unlikely friendship between seventeen year old Noe, fresh from the seminary, and sixty-something Christy, who has been tasked with siting the poles that will connect the village of Faha to the National Grid. The novel unfolds slowly, but along with the details of village life come shards of pure beauty and insights into love, life and loss. I've read a LOT of books this year, but none have moved me as much as this one. I absolutely loved it.

Cathy Cassidy is the author of  the Chocolate Box Girls series and other children’s books.

Pippa Goodhart chooses The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: this novel is a breath of fresh air. Far from perfect, but full of energy, ideas and beautiful writing, it’s rich and original, and I’ll certainly read it again.

Kaliane Bradley is a Penguin book editor who found herself shut-in alone and bored during Covid lockdowns. She watched a television programme about the HMS Erebus polar expedition, and semi fell in love with naval officer Graham Gore (look online for his photo!) who died, but it isn’t known quite how. She found other enthusiasts online, and began writing a bit of time travel fantasy for their entertainment. To her surprise, that then grew into this, her first novel, The Ministry of Time.

It's written in the first person by disaffected female civil servant, brought into The Ministry of Time to become a ‘handler’ for an ‘expat’ brought from the past to be studied. Thus, gorgeous but of his time Graham Gore comes to live in her flat, bemused by washing machines, Spotify, doing your own cooking, feminism, computers, but gallantly trying to assimilate. Also brought from the past at moments when they died alone, and therefore history won’t be disturbed by their removal from it, come characters from 1645, 1665, 1793, and 1916, from whores to soldiers. Friendships and tensions arise, sometimes very funny, often poignant.

What to do with this situation she has created? The story becomes a tangle of sci-fi, rom-com, study of race and empire, and it doesn’t all convincingly resolve. But, no matter. The ride has been thought-provoking and fun!

Pippa Goodhart's latest publication is You Choose Bedtime, illustrated by Nick Sharratt.

Linda Newbery chooses Etta Lemon - the Woman who Saved the Birds by Tessa Boase, and will post a full review soon. Its wide sweep covers not only Etta Lemon's outrage at the mass killing of birds - almost driving some species to extinction - to provide feathers for fashionable hats, but also the suffragettes/suffragists, whose campaign began shortly after Etta Lemon's and who were of course far more prominent. There's much about social history, conditions of workers and the rise of feminism alongside the origins of the RSPB - now one of the UK's largest conservation organisations. Yet until now, and the publication of this book, Etta Lemon and her colleagues were barely acknowledged. There's much to learn and enjoy in this fascinating account.

Linda Newbery's latest publication is The One True Thing.

Sarah LeFanu chooses Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman: My friend Hannah sent me this wonderful short story collection for my birthday in the summer. I had never heard of Edith Pearlman, although she has been writing short stories for 40 years and has won numerous awards in the USA. She’s nowhere near as famous as the writers to whom she is most often compared, Alice Munro and John Updike. Each of Pearlman’s sentences provides pleasure. She has a broader scope than Munro, and is more subtle and compassionate than Updike. The stories range widely in place (New England, old Russia, Central America, the remote mountains of Hungary), in character and voice, and in subject-matter. They are utterly serious, shot through with humour, and quietly surprising. Now I am slowly re-reading them, savouring their rich complexity. When I looked her up, I found she had died in early 2023. I shall track down her earlier collections.

Sarah LeFanu's latest publication is Talking to the Dead: Travels of a Biographer

Nick Hodges: My book of the year? Sean Dooley's The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, A Race Against Time - a True Story about Birdwatching, wherein the writer spends his inheritance attempting to see and tick off 700 species of Australian birds. Dooley gives himself a year and when the book starts - dead on midnight - so does he: positioned with spotlight in a dark forest. A nocturnal sooty owl is the first target. And it's raining.

He could of course be partying; celebrating the arrival of the new year; doing what ordinary people do. But no: he's a twitcher. And so we follow Dooley's adventures as he travels and ticks his way through the country: its swamps and sewage works (yes, you read that right); its heat and dust. Seasickness plays its part as well as flat tyres in the desert. A book written by a man aware of his own eccentricities. And no girlfriend. 

Nick Hodges is a wildlife journalist living in Sydney.

Sam Barnes of Books & Ink Bookshop recommends Craftland by James Fox: This is the most beautifully written book documenting the lives and careers of master craftspeople whose trades are critically endangered. James Fox demonstrates a vast breadth of research and a true, authentic passion for his subject, giving voice to craft trades spanning the length and breadth of the British Isles, incorporating not just rural crafts but those found in our towns and cities too. The author explores trades from the Scottish Islands in the north down to the Scilly Isles in the south. From watchmakers, coopers and bell founders, to bodgers, rush cutters and letter cutters. This isn’t a travelogue, though the author visits all these places and people; it is a love letter to crafts and trades, a living history and a reminder to us all to look around at all the crafted objects we use every day and consider their story. Britain is a nature of crafters and hopefully this book will also inspire a new generation to take up some of these threatened trades. A delight to read but also a delight to listen to as James Fox narrates his own audiobook, interjecting his passion for the trades he talks about into his audio delivery (available on Librofm and presumably on other audio platforms too).

Books & Ink is in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. Proprietor Sam Barnes, back in the days when her shop was in Banbury, was our very first independent bookshop contributor.

Graeme Fife chooses Facing Down the Furies by Edith Hall. I’ve known five men who committed suicide, two of them close to me, and nurse my own feelings as to their loss. In this remarkable book, Hall, with great candour, insight and courage explores her own emotional reaction to the suicide of past members of her family and the ‘miasma of corruption’ as she puts it, which clung to the survivors and lingers, yet, near irresistibly, in her. Into this investigation of her own emotional responses she weaves the result of deep study of many Greek tragedies which delve undaunted into the unkindly matter of self-destruction.

The Greek idea of three Furies, known, euphemistically, as Eumenides ‘kindly ones’ (an interesting paradox in itself) underpins this vital study of a dark corner of the human psyche. Greek myth emerged from an extraordinarily acute sensibility which, in its turn gave birth to the tragedies of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, the work that forms the very foundation of our own drama. Full review coming in 2026.

Graeme Fife's latest novel is Memory's Ransom.

From Caroline Pitcher: As Christmas hurtles near, I’m re-reading eight of Claire Keegan’s short stories in the collection Walk the Blue Fields.

The title story begins: the women came with flowers, each one a different shade of red. Later, the priest stares at the line of her scalp where the shining red hair is parted.

At the wedding feast there is humour, and threat. After the best man urinates, he turns before his cock is put away. It is a huge cock and he has difficulty getting it back into the rented trousers.

Walk the Blue Fields is the bittersweet story of a man whose love got away. The spare writing is full of sadness, yet after the visit to the mysterious Chinaman, the priest thinks after all that, The spring has come, dry and promising.

In Claire Keegan’s writing, there is so much more than meets the eye. Ireland struggles with its dark past. (Here I want to mention So Late in the Day, a shattering novella about Cathal’s inherited misogyny, which destroys his own happiness.

Hilary Mantel said that Keegan writes with a certain stony-eyed realism about human experience. Yes. And she doesn’t write enough stories for me.

Caroline Pitcher's latest book is Mariana and the Merchild, illustrated by Jackie Morris.

And finally: Julia Jarman's choice is The Glory Cloak by Patricia O’Brien. The glory cloak of the title fixes this novel in my memory, sparking others of people, places and actions, some of which I’d rather forget. The novel is an alternative biography of Louisa M Alcott, written from the point of view of a fictitious character, Susan Gray, who gets closer to her than even her sisters did, joining her in the Union Hospital in Washington DC where, during the American Civil War, Louisa nursed soldiers and fell in love. It’s a story of passionate love and passionate self-denial – and it rings true, because of the writer’s skill and meticulous historical research.

The glory cloak itself was real. Luxurious, made of red and green silk, it was confined to the dressing-up box in the Quakerish Alcott household. But Louisa’s mother once placed it round her shoulders to inspire her ‘to do great things’.

Julia Jarman's latest novel is Widows Waive the Rules.

What are your own best reads of the year? Please tell us in the comments, and do come back next week for our final selection.

SPECIAL FEATURE: Q&A with Sheena Wilkinson about her new novel MISS McVEY TAKES CHARGE

"I’m always keen to be historically accurate but of course Felicity, and to a lesser extent April, represent the more forward-thinking people of their time ..."

Miss McVey Takes Charge: Yorkshire,1936. April McVey is in charge of True Minds Marriage Bureau, trying to find happy futures for the lovelorn of Easterbridge, while the menace of fascism marches through the country.

After two years of matchmaking, she thinks she has seen it all. But when an old friend arrives from Ireland, with a broken heart that’s well beyond April’s experience, and then a young nun asks her to find a match for her lonely brother, the consequences are shattering.

And as political turmoil reaches their own community, will April have the courage to take charge and do the right thing?

Sheena answers questions from Linda Newbery.

Linda: First, congratulations! It's lovely to see this in print, with such an enticing cover. It'll be a treat for readers of Mrs Hart's Marriage Bureau, while for those who haven't yet read that, it'll surely send them to it. Did you already have a sequel in mind while you were finishing the first book?

Sheena: Yes and no! I wrote Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau as a standalone, but the acquiring editor at HarperCollins Ireland was very enthusiastic about its obvious series potential. Which got me thinking… So in my final edit I did drop in a few details I could pick up on for the sequel.

As it turned out, as is the way in publishing, that editor moved on and HarperCollins didn’t offer for the sequel next book because of what they termed ‘disappointing sales’ of Mrs Hart. But by then, encouraged by hundreds of reader reviews which asked for another story, I had written it! I couldn’t bear those readers not to get their sequel, and by then I had put a year’s hard work into it.

I had considered self-publishing but to be honest I was stalling, overwhelmed by what seemed the scariness of it, when Writers Review Publishing invited me on board. I was so thrilled! I was lucky enough to work with Michelle Griffin, the freelance editor who’d worked on Mrs Hart and so knew – and loved – the world, and with Niall McCormack, the illustrator who had designed four of my previous covers. He has a gorgeous style and a real understanding of the aesthetics of the period, and I adore what he’s done.

Linda: I like the way you show April and Felicity adjusting to their lives together - managing domestic and practical details as well as, in April's case, questioning Felicity's commitment. Did you find it tricky to strike the right balance between acceptance of same-sex relationships and giving a realistic impression of attitudes at that time?

Sheena: It was something to think very carefully about, but this is my seventh historical novel, albeit only my second for adults, so treading that line has become very natural. I’m always keen to be historically accurate but of course Felicity, and to a lesser extent April, represent the more forward-thinking people of their time. Because I have a range of characters it was easy enough to show a convincing spread of attitudes, not only about sexuality but about, for example, greyhound racing, which was a hugely-popular sport at the time, with some characters enjoying it without questioning the ethics, and others voicing the opinion that it’s cruel, which is more in keeping with modern sensibilities (and, I know, yours).

Linda: It's just as much Evelyn's story as April's, and this enables you to set some of the scenes in Lisnacashan, the town in northern Ireland where April grew up. When talking about the first book, you said that you'd chosen to set it in Yorkshire, rather than Ireland, to avoid some of the religious divisions that would hamper things in the marriage bureau, but did you immediately see a way to use those here?

Sheena: It's funny, but I never really thought about that until this question! The answer is that when you set anything in Northern Ireland, especially in the past, you simply can’t get away from engaging with religion. It’s just there in the ether and so it found its way into the book. It’s ironic, perhaps, that Protestant Irish Evelyn falls in love with a Catholic Englishman … I come from a mixed background myself which I think informs my outlook on life and my work and helps me to see things in a balanced way.

Linda: You've described the first book as 'feelgood feminism' which is just as apt here - romantic elements and will-they-won't-they combined with awareness of the growing threat of Fascism, which comes close to home in the form of meetings in Easterbridge, a march in nearby Leeds and violence towards some of your characters. There are phrases here that are all too relevant to the worrying surge of the far right in today's public life and politics, and in fact the current situation has worsened during the time you were writing and editing the book. Did you adapt what you were writing in the light of that?

Sheena: The book was a long time in the making, and it rested for a full year before the final edit in the spring of 2025. Even in that year, as you say, things grew much worse for women and other marginalised groups and we’ve seen a surge in far-right attitudes across the world. When Martha comments on the ‘nastiness’ in the atmosphere, I felt very sad that she could be commenting on Britain and other countries today. The best historical fiction should show us ourselves as well as our ancestors: I wish that Miss McVey Takes Charge wasn’t quite so relevant to today’s struggles, but I was grateful for the chance to explore the tension between the political and the personal, and the frustration of feeling up against what feels like an overwhelming tide of bigotry and hatred, in the relatively cosy world of Easterbridge.

Everyone knows about the Battle of Cable Street, which is mentioned at the end of the novel, but the Battle of Holbeck Moor in Leeds on 27th September 1936 is less famous. There was no way Felicity wouldn’t have attended that anti-fascist rally, so I always knew it would form an important part of the narrative. I’ve often written about real-life events but this is the first time I’ve put my fictional characters right in the thick of the action.

Linda: The story ends at a time when the threat of war in Europe is looming. Do you have any plans to continue the story of April and Felicity farther into the 30s or even into the war years?

Sheena: At present I don’t have any such plans. I’ve a novel nearly ready for submission which is set among the staff of a Belfast girls’ school in the 1920s, and my work in progress is a dual timeline set between 2024 and World War 2. So there are no immediate plans to go back to Easterbridge. Having said that, I love April and her friends and if I felt that there was a new story to tell – and, crucially, readers wanting it —I’d love to go back and tell it. And yes, Easterbridge at war would be the ideal focus. I can imagine the Colonel opening up his home to evacuees and the Mill running first aid classes.

As for the structure, I will always highlight the female perspective, but I like giving the men their say too. I love the challenge of writing from a male point of view, and both Fabian (in Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau) and Charlie (in Miss McVey Takes Charge) are the closest I have come to writing romantic heroes. I have to admit I fell in love with Charlie a bit so I hope readers do too!

Linda: The novel is cleverly plotted and moves on at quite a pace. Are you a detailed planner - did you plot each episode before you started writing? Were there any that grew out of the telling, and surprised you? Did any of the characters develop in ways you hadn't quite planned?

Sheena: I do plan, yes, and because of having three viewpoint characters I have to think about who’s best placed to carry the narrative at any given point. But that generally happens as the story unfolds rather than in advance. I always have a big notebook full of notes and planning but I don’t over-plan and I love to be surprised.

The first scene came to me in Shropshire in autumn 2023. I was walking in the woods and playing out the conversation between April and Margaret, who enlists the bureau’s help to find a wife for her brother, Charlie. I saw her as a handsome, but very plainly-dressed young girl, and then I thought, Good lord, she wants to be a nun! And that ushered in Charlie’s background and his faith – I hadn’t actually sat down and planned that, which seems odd now as it’s absolutely fundamental to the conflicts of the story. I love being open to that kind of thing; it makes the writing much more exciting.

Linda: Besides reading, are there other things you do to immerse yourself thoroughly in the social life of the 1930s - fashion, food, manners, idioms, etc?

Sheena: Oh yes! I have always been a geek about history and especially the kind that’s not too long ago. I read a lot of 1930s fiction, from Noel Streatfeild to Dorothy Whipple, and l love reading about the minutiae of daily life. I can get lost for hours on websites full of 1930s dress patterns and the like, and I love nothing better than a day at a museum, especially the kind with reconstructed houses, etc.

I was always very close to my granny, who was born in 1908 and lived until she was 96, and I loved hearing her stories about ‘the olden days’. She would have been a contemporary of the main characters and I’ve given April, Felicity and Evelyn some of her frocks, based on old photos of Gran and Aunt Annie and their chums on church outings and the like. Of course the snaps are all in black and white so I’ve had to guess at the colours. Isn’t that an ideal metaphor for what historical novelists try to do?

Linda: It absolutely is! Thanks, Sheena - I hope Miss McVey will continue to win the hearts of readers.

Miss McVey Takes Charge is published by Writers Review Publishing.

See also: Q&A with Sheena about Mrs Hart's Marriage Bureau

Also from Writers Review Publishing:

The Poet's Wife by Judith Allnatt

David: the Unauthorised Autobiography by Mary Hoffman

The One True Thing by Linda Newbery