After the slow motion collapse of her marriage Anne seeks refuge on the jagged island of Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands off Africa. Wounded, introspective, prickly – like the Drago tree of the title – Anne broods about her past, trying through writing in her notebook to exorcize the ghosts of her husband and troubled sister. She meets the novelist Richard . He lives … Continue reading The Drago Tree, by Isobel Blackthorn. A novel set in the Canary Islands

‘Everything is Geography.’ Ty Kornotz, professor of, yes, geography. Mud and Glass by Laura E Goodin, an affectionate satire of the academic world, is asludge with villians oozing about in layers even more murky than the Purple Bay Mud Flats. Unwittingly, Dr Celeste Carlucci, while researching the odd behaviour of those flats, becomes the target of everyone who thinks she can help them find the … Continue reading Mud and Glass, by Laura E Goodin