Nicola Garrard 🏳️‍🌈BLM

Why is @knightsofbooks.bsky.social. Closing? It has so many prize winners & dominates long/shortlists every year in every major children’s award. I’m reading the brilliant #heretoslay by Radhika Sanghani today, on the @uklitassociation.bsky.social book awards 11-14+ longlist. What’s going on?🥺

“I read this beautiful book on holiday and couldn't put it down.”
😁I’m delighted to see more 5 star reviews for #OnTheEdge popping up, especially when they praise its beauty AND unputdownability (is that a word?😂)❤️🔥🥰
THANK YOU READERS! Keep ’em coming ⭐️🌟💫✨
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

There are now signed copies of #OnTheEdge🔥at The Book Nook in Hove! 😁🥰🤩This specialist indie children’s bookshop has a huge collection of YA & children’s books. Check it out! Thank you @booknookhove.bsky.social for the warm welcome!❤️
#ukya #bookshop #Brightonandhove
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

I love it when “oldies” love my books!🥰😊🔥I want #OnTheEdge to be the kind of book that young people read again later in life and see a whole different story!
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social
#yacrossover #ukya #bookrecs #booksbooksbooks #youngadultfiction

😊🥰

This thread.. thank you, thank you @nmgarrard.bsky.social. If you like the sound of this, do please read, buy, borrow, listen, gift, review. These forgotten women & their ghosts will love you for it, as will I!

By the way… I only treat books this badly when I adore them! I go back to each dog-eared page to re-read, copy out quotes and write notes on favourite sections.

like many species of birds, shrunk towards extinction as habitats (hand-laid hedges, affordable tied housing & jobs) grow scarce and villages are gentrified by wealthy weekenders. Chester is an unparalleled writer of rural things, a conjuror of ghosts.
@chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

The past is never glorified but echoes a warning through time to our present-day, living rural communities with complex challenges and uncertain prospects. The ghosts in this book are the people we used to be, the shadows of a way of life for rural working class people that has…

hope for a future that can contain nature, farming and rural communities. Chester has the ear and eye of a novelist for dialogue and imagery - much of this reads like a novel and I found myself slowing down towards the end, wanting to be haunted for longer…

#GhostsOfTheFarm by @nicolawriting.bsky.social is an outstanding fusion of memoir and creative historical non-fiction. It is tender and sentiment-filled, without ever being sentimental, and strikes a deeply painful, elegiac note without losing hope…

🤩🥰😊

So @nmgarrard.bsky.social has read my book, & given me the most astonishingly lovely review. Had to have a little sit down & a cry. Her writing & voice is just brilliant, crystalline & vivid. So oh wow, this means everything.

I was blown away by your talent, kindness, creativity and sense of justice! The future is safe in your kind hands. 🤩Plus… that falafel beetroot wrap was probably the best school lunch ever!😍😍😍😍

I had a FABULOUS day at The King’s School in Hove 🥰Thank you so much for inviting me to lead a full day of assemblies & creative writing workshops across KS3 & KS4! We read, we wrote, we debated, we learned about POSITIVE protest …😍
#OnTheEdge #nicolagarrardauthor @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social #UKYA

Check out my @campyafest.bsky.social campfire chat! 🏕️🔥🥰#OnTheEdge @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

campya.org/campfire-cha...

Teachers & school librarians! If your school is north of Nottingham, or abroad, you can book an author e-visit with me!

Here’s what Literacy School of the Year 2025 @SharplesSchool said about my e-visit to talk about #OnTheEdge, protest & extremism. 😁🔥📚🥰
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

Happy #bookshopday! I popped into the gorgeous @chocolitbooks.bsky.social in Clapham & was delighted to find the multitalented Gareth P Jones playing his music. There are now signed copies of #ontheedge at Chocolit ❤️🔥Thank you, Martina!🥰
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social @booksaremybag.bsky.social

Reading helps me to relax! Even ten minutes of reading each day is enough to boost my mood. Don’t forget, children and animals love to be read aloud to! I’m taking 10 to read to Harold the sheep!🐏📚🥰 #Take10ToRead #WorldMentalHealthDay @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

Know your history! My recommendations for #BlackHistoryMonth are David Olusoga’s sweeping history #BlackAndBritish & Samuel Selvon’s #TheLonelyLondoners. Olusoga’s chilling Preface, about the 70s & 80s racism & ethno-nationalism in his childhood, reads like an account of today.

Exciting #booksky post, all in just over a week! All subjects so close to my heart: #TheEmpathyFix, #NeurodivergentbyNature, #LoveAngerBetrayal, #OntheEdge, #Fenwomen & #Village added to my pile of books tbr, that will inform, enlighten, move & enrich my life, writing & understanding. Books eh? 1/4

The family in #ontheedge fish, forage & scrump for free food, just like my family does. I spent a lot of time as a child gathering mushrooms with my parents, but I didn’t put that in the novel for obvious reasons! Don’t collect mushrooms if you don’t know what you’re doing!
#foodforfree #forestfood

It’s been a bumper Ceptember! 🍄‍🟫Scroll through the photos to see what I made with these penny buns (AKA cep, porcini, boletus) We eat like kings for free! Super yellow eggs thanks to my garden hens. 🥰

Thank you Midhurst Rother College for inviting me to visit your school😁. It was great talking to Yr 9 about the history of protest & the dangers of extremism. I loved discussing the causes of riots with your A-Level Politics students. Teenagers are really engaged in the issues in #OnTheEdge!🥰

Wait till you meet a raven!

Teenage girls with no fear of police torment shopkeepers on Shirley High Street Teenagers have been targeting shops in Shirley, Hampshire, with antisocial behaviour - leaving the owners feeling

“When I eventually encounter the gang, I'm faced with a 14-year-old girl in pink leggings and Crocs.”
Interesting how the BBC journalist codes socioeconomic background without naming it. Now let’s talk about the 1,243 youth centres closed since 2010.😠

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“A comment on the state of Britain worthy of Dickens … a major tour de force and I cannot recommend it enough.”

I love this very detailed and thoughtful ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️review of #OnTheEdge on Amazon. Thank you, Piers! 🥰
@oldbarnbooks

I was thrilled today to receive an early copy of Nicola Chester’s beautiful new book, #GhostsOfTheFarm. The Preface is stunning - I can’t wait to read the rest of it. Thank you, @chelseagreen 🌱❤️
#ruralhistory #sustainability #environment #womeninfarming #farminghistory

Coastal tensions and violence explored in new book The dangers of extremism and the challenges of many of our coastal communities are at the heart of On the Edge (Old Barn Books), the latest novel from Nicola Garrard who lives near Petworth.

Thanks to Phil Hewitt, Arts Editor at @sussex_express @Sussex_World for the interview - and a shout-out for my Chichester Literary Society event in January 2026! ❤️🔥

www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/coastal...

I LOVE getting photos of #OnTheEdge in its natural habitat - a sunny, sandy beach. ❤️🔥🌊🏄 This copy looks like it might have been handled by chippy and/or ice-creamy fingers! Even better!😂