BOOKS
BOOK REVIEW
By Wayne, Winstone’s
NOW WE ARE TEN Winstone’s, Sherborne’s independent bookseller celebrates its 10th anniversary. Following the sad early death of the hugely popular author Lucinda Riley, we now have the only crime novel she wrote, written in 2006 but never published. This is hugely exciting for Lucinda’s readers and a treat for booksellers.
The Murders at Fleat House by Lucinda Riley £20 hardback The Murders at Fleat House is a suspenseful and utterly compelling crime novel from the author of the multimillionselling The Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley. The sudden death of a pupil in Fleat House at St Stephen’s – a small private boarding school in deepest Norfolk – is a shocking event that the headmaster is very keen to call a tragic accident. But the local police cannot rule out foul play and the case prompts the return of highflying Detective Inspector Jazmine ‘Jazz’ Hunter to the force. Then, a particularly grim discovery at the school makes this the most challenging murder investigation of her career. Because Fleat House hides secrets darker than even Jazz could ever have imagined.
Doctors are under huge pressure coping with never-ending directives from government and Covid backlogs; author Polly has produced a compelling account of what it means to be a country doctor.
A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story by Polly Morland £16.99 A Fortunate Woman is a compelling, thoughtful and insightful look at the life and work of a country doctor. Funny, moving and not afraid of the dark, it will speak to readers everywhere. Polly Morland was clearing her late mother’s house when she found a battered paperback fallen behind the family bookshelf. Opening it, she was astonished to see an old photograph of the remote, wooded valley in which she lives. The book was A Fortunate Man, John Berger’s classic account of a country doctor working in the same valley more than half a century earlier. This chance discovery led Morland to the remarkable doctor who serves that valley community today, a woman whose own medical vocation was inspired by reading the very same book as a teenager. A Fortunate Woman tells her compelling, true story, and how the tale of the old doctor has threaded through her own life in magical ways. Working within a community she loves, she is a rarity in contemporary medicine: a modern doctor who knows her patients inside out, and the lives of this ancient, wild place entwined with her own. Revisiting Berger’s story after half a century of seismic change, both in our society and in the ways in which medicine is practised, A Fortunate Woman sheds light on what it means to be a doctor in today’s complex and challenging world. Interweaving the doctor’s story with those of her patients, reflecting on the relationship between landscape and community, and upon the wider role of medicine in society, a unique portrait of a twenty-first-century family doctor emerges. Illustrated throughout with photographs by Richard Baker.
8, Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset. DTP 3PX 01935 816 128 winstonebooks1@gmail.com www.winstonebooks.co.uk
‘All human life is here in this evocative portrayal of the challenges and joys of rural family doctoring in modern times’ Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford
CALLING BUDDING WRITERS IN DORSET AND SOMERSET! Budding writers are being invited to submit their poetry and short stories for new books celebrating the counties of Dorset and Somerset. ‘I am particularly keen to promote fresh, new talent so extend this invitation to anyone aged 16 and over,’ says Tim, who has just published The Hampshire Collection. ‘The challenge is that poetry needs to be 30 lines or under and stories must not exceed 1,000 words.’ The deadline is Thursday 28 July 2022 with publication scheduled for late 2022/early 2023. Email your entries to tsaunderspubs@ gmail.com 30
Separately, Tim is also working on a fundraising project for Ukraine. ‘Within the next few months, I will be publishing a book celebrating freedom and hope with 100 per cent of the royalties going to the Sunflower of Peace Foundation (sunflowerofpeace. com.), a non-profit organization committed to helping Ukrainians affected by the Russian military invasion. For this I am looking for unpublished poetry (no more than 30 lines) and short stories (no more than 1,000 words) on the subjects of freedom and hope. The deadline is Wednesday 1 June.’ Email your entries to tsaunderspubs@gmail.com. For more information, visit www.tasaunders.weebly.com/tim-saunderspublications.html.
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