Book recommendations from Saraband authors

Posted on December 3, 2024

Looking for some book buying inspiration and recommendations this Christmas? We asked Saraband authors to recommend their favourite Saraband books (but not their own, of course!)

 

Sue Lawrence

“The Call of the Cormorant by Donald S Murray. “This story is fascinating, so well-researched, beautifully written  and utterly captivating.

Miss Blaines Prefect and the Gondola of Doom by Olga Wojtas. All Olga’s books are clever and funny, this one no exception – it’s  completely engaging.

ANY of Jim Crumley‘s nature books – reflective and thoughtful, they make you want to stop whatever you’re doing and get out into the fresh air to look all around and listen to the sounds of nature.”

 

Catherine Simpson

“Olga Wojtas’s Miss Blaine’s Prefect series. This is witty and clever cosy crime with a time-travelling sleuth who dives around from 17^th Century Venice to Macbeth’s Scotland via Czarist Russia, witnessing (causing?) chaos and getting hold of the wrong end of many a stick. Great fun and total escapism. If you want to jump off the world this Christmas you couldn’t do it in better company than with Olga and Miss Blaine’s Prefect.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Gorski Trilogy. A three-book character study like no other. Get under the skin of the small French town of Saint-Louis and its people through the beautiful writing of Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose ability to realise characters is second to none. At once funny, fascinating and page-turning this series is the perfect immersive read. I wish I had never read them so I could start all over again for the first time.

Cold Fish Soup by Adam Farrer. A memoir of life on a northern coast which is crumbling into the sea. Funny and moving and ultimately – despite the sadness within – uplifting. The voice of this memoir is honest and true. Adam has a great sense of the absurd and it is a pleasure to spend time in his company.”

Mike Billett

“I have read and enjoyed three of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s books this year, and Case Study has to be my favourite. Maybe because it was the first one I read, but it creates an atmosphere and gripping drama that steadily unfolds page by page. With a serious message about the nature of sanity, I don’t think I’ve been entertained so much reading a psychological thriller.

Flipping genre, I really enjoyed Les Wilson’s Orwell’s Island. Jura is a place the author knows well and the book meshes Orwell’s time on the island with an interesting and different take on this complex and often contradictory character. It inspired me to re-read 1984 and reflect again on Orwell’s vision of the future.”

Ajay Close

“If you’ve not come across Olga Wojtas‘s first three Miss Blaine novels, then Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Gondola of Doom will be like nothing you’ve read before: the time-travelling adventures of a superannuated Edinburgh schoolgirl. Surreal, silly, informative and very funny.

For a darker (but still funny) read, I recommend How to Survive Everything – Ewan Morrison’s gripping, thought-provoking, disturbing novel about family, trust and resilience, told through the pitch-perfect voice of a teenage girl.”

Olga Wojtas

“The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange by Sue Lawrence. I knew of Sue Lawrence as a wonderfully talented chef but she’s also a wonderfully talented writer, with a series of historical novels about Scottish women. I love her reimagining of the true story of Lady Grange, whose husband had her kidnapped in 1732 and imprisoned in various remote places, including St Kilda.

What Doesn’t Kill Us by Ajay Close. Gripping, shocking, funny, thought-provoking – Ajay Close’s novel has it all. A brilliantly accurate account of male chauvinism and women’s lib in the 1970s as Leeds is in the grip of a serial killer.

The Interview by J. David Simons. Intriguing, slow-burn novel about Glasgow-born Callum Drummond who becomes a celebrated American talk-show host. The story of a life, revealing how personal tragedy provokes a career-ending interview with the American president.”

Les Wilson

“I loved Donald S. Murray’s novel As the Women Lay Dreaming so much that I made a one-hour documentary about it for BBC ALBA. He’s a beguiling writer, but I think this is my favourite novel of his.

I’m a Scots history fan, but I like a bit of fantasy too. They come together perfectly in Olga Wojtas’s Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Weird Sisters – a mind-bending riff on Macbeth.

I live on Islay – the whisky island – so Mike Billet’s Peat and Whisky: The Unbreakable Bond was required reading for me. It contains more than I ever needed to know about peat, but it was a fascinating read.  A ‘must’ for whisky fans.

And I can’t miss out His Bloody Project, or Chris Dolan’s cycling adventure, Everything Passes, Everything Remains… even though I was only suppose to choose three!”

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Check out the Saraband Christmas Shop, where you’ll find many of the books above and much more!