Tavia Allan

Going off social media for Lent. May be back.

Cover of Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield.

Lovely book. Reminded me how much I love the Thames, too.

🎂

Saw a woman outside Hammersmith Broadway with a placard saying Make Britain Great Again and Vote Reform. Thought about shouting at her, snatching her placard and jumping on it. But
I gave her a long contemptuous stare as I passed. Disdain stops fascists, right?

Hope you both feel better soon

What very cool wallpaper!

The Slow Horses (Magarita pizza with added anchovies, cheesy potato wedges, green salad, apricot and Haribo pastries. London Rules 2018 and Joe Country 2019.) Food is mentioned quite frequently in the Slow Horses …

After a hiatus, another episode of Eating the Detectives. What do the Slow Horses eat? (I know they're spooks, not sleuths, strictly speaking, but I'm obsessed. )

eatingthedetectives.wordpress.com/2025/02/18/t...

The Slow Horses (Magarita pizza with added anchovies, cheesy potato wedges, green salad, apricot and Haribo pastries. London Rules 2018 and Joe Country 2019.) Food is mentioned quite frequently in the Slow Horses …

After a hiatus, another episode of Eating the Detectives. What do the Slow Horses eat? (I know they're spooks, not sleuths, strictly speaking, but I'm obsessed. )

eatingthedetectives.wordpress.com/2025/02/18/t...

Remember Play for Today? Some great writers and actors on that strand. I'd love to see that make a comeback.

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Looking forward to starting this, which has been on my tbr pile far too long.

Current reading.
Weird Fiction anthology from Penguin (I've been dipping into this now and again since November!) and about to start Joe Country by Mick Herron. May save it for train journey tomorrow.

Incense stick and a small doll with a broom.

Happy Imbolc

Amongst the acknowledgements at the end of London Rules, Mick Herron crediting John Finnemore for 'Yellow car'. Love it.

Cover if London Rules by Mick Herron.

Wished I'd had London Rules with me when I met a friend for coffee in the Regent's Park. Meeting in a London park in winter always feels quite espionage-y.

Congratulations 🎊

The book's cover, a Penguin Classics cover with detail from the painting Butterly, marine mollusc and pear by Joris Hoefnagel and Georg Bocskay

Picked up The Book of Magic on impulse in the Gower Street Waterstones. It's an anthology, published by Penguin, of texts about magic - providing a fascinating historical survey of beliefs about and attitudes to the topic. The editor, Brian Copenhaver, introduces each reading beautifully.

Spook Street is the 4th in the Slow Horses series. And in this one Herron really teases the reader.

Fear for Miss Betony is a golden age detective story (takes place during WW2, but still GA) of the fair play type. Intriguing and beautifully written with a school setting, a fortune teller, and mystifying hints at arsenic poisoning.

Paperback Fear for Miss Betony by Dorothy Bowers side by side with hardback Spook Street by Mick Herron.

My new reading strategy is alternating between a library book and a book from the TBR pile. It seems to be working. Only borrowing one book at a time from the library helps.

Finished Winter's Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch yesterday. One from my tbr pile I saved up for December - snow, ice, monsters and the FBI. Next from the library: Real Tigers by Mick Herron. Not very wintry, but gripping so far.

A winter tree for Yule/ Yalda

Wow, well done

Cover of Dead Lions by Mick Herron

New library book. So good. Laughed out loud several times already.

Not so much breaking the fourth wall as vaporising it with a photon blaster

Cover of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Angled photo of same book showing black edges and red ribbon marker

When a book is also a beautiful object, it is even more of a treat to spend a winter afternoon reading.

Cover of Weird Fiction anthology, Penguin. Orange and yellow tentacles.

Couldn't resist buying this beauty from Holdfast book boat in Leeds.

Really enjoyed this. Slow Horses by Mick Herron. And there's a whole series. Deserves the comparison with Le Carrè, but funnier, and better female characters.

Imagine how I felt, continuing to read on my way back from Leeds, and the new setting of Headingley appears. The book is stalking me.

Cover of Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Enjoying my new library book. Travelling from King's Cross after reading the first chapter was a little disturbing, though.

Cover of Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Enjoying my new library book. Travelling from King's Cross after reading the first chapter was a little disturbing, though.