The writing is incredibly fluid, pitch perfect with just the right amount of lyricism - The Book Family Rogerson

The Familiars by Stacey Halls | Waterstones

Alongside an exploration of therapy, the novel examines the aspirations and limitations of motherhood. “[The novel] enables you to grapple with all sorts of dilemmas,” Thomas says. “What does it mean to get it right? What do you do if your child is struggling? How much do you bear letting them find their way? I think it’s a real challenge. And I think there’s such a lot of pressure at the moment to get it right.” As the build-up to publication begins, she has retreated to her pottery shed, where 250 tiny saucers are cooling in a kiln – each decorated in delicate gold leaf with a wombat. Rossetti famously kept one as a pet, and a female wombat called Guinevere wreaks merry havoc in The Doll Factory, before expiring – much like Rossetti’s – after a feast of cigars and chocolate. Except the chocolate was Macneal’s own elaboration, on the advice of a vet friend, who pointed out that cigars alone would probably not have been fatal. The devil of all good historical fiction is in the detail. Claire Armitstead Sara Collins: ‘Raising five children wasn’t as hard as writing this novel’ Jingjing recalls his first meeting with Tian Li, four years ago. The police had just arrested him in a park for drug use and she had convinced them to let him go. She had offered him a job if he swore to forsake his addiction. Life in her employ still leaves Jingjing unfulfilled, and he fantasizes about leaving Singapore. In 1667, Margaret found herself before the authorities accused of witchcraft. She confessed to having been a witch for thirty years since her mother died, before relating a startling tale. When her mother had died, there was precious little to pass on to her daughters: with no wealth or belongings of note, instead she bequeathed to them her familiars. Margaret and her sister had accepted this unusual inheritance, and they had been in possession of the creatures ever since.

Part of Thomas’s motivation was, she says, to humanise therapists: “The reality is that therapists have crumbling lives like everybody else: marriages that don’t work, children they can’t manage very well… They are not perfect people but that doesn’t stop them being fantastic therapists.” Integral to Ruth’s narrative is the experience of loss, which, as Thomas observes, is universal. “It’s something that finds its way into the therapy room in all sorts of guises. I don’t just mean bereavement, but loss of identity or loss of a family member through drugs or alcohol or mental health issues. Loss is such a human condition.” Like Danielewski's other work, The Familiar has a very particular structure, and this first volume created the framework that each subsequent volume has followed thus far. Each volume contains: Hammad is careful to say that while the central character has the same name as her great-grandfather, the book is heavily fictionalised, that she has “joined the dots imaginatively”. The result is a novel of immense skill and confidence, garnering praise from Zadie Smith, who taught her for a while, and who calls it “a sublime reading experience… surpassingly intelligent”. She also brought up five children: “It’s a bit Brady Bunch,” she laughs, as she had two kids and then married a widowed father of three; so despite always knowing that she wanted to write, she couldn’t find the time.

Familiars: What is a Familiar Spirit? From Past to Witches Familiars: What is a Familiar Spirit? From Past to

Chauran, Alexandra (2013). Animal Familiars for Beginners. Jupiter Gardens Press. ISBN 978-1938257667. Left Hanging: The final book in the series, Palace of Dreams, ends on an as-of-now unresolved Cliffhanger, with several loose ends such as where Aldwyn's sister is not wrapped up.After an English degree at Cambridge University, he took a screenwriting course at the American Film Institute and embarked on a career in a film industry he found “soul destroying”. He was on the brink of giving up writing when he decided to have one last throw of the dice: “I thought, ‘Before I give up writing, I’m going to try and write the one thing I always wanted to write’, which was an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery with a deeper psychological complexity.” Almost three decades later, Michaelides, 41, has written a debut novel with a narrative to rival that of his boyhood literary heroine. The Silent Patient is a taut, meticulously plotted and compelling novel that has earned advance praise from the likes of Lee Child, Stephen Fry and David Baldacci. It was the subject of a seven-way publisher auction and has so far sold in 40 foreign territories, a record for a UK debut thriller.