#books

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A city at peace in a world at war. ‘The Stockholm Run’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland and Sweden during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

This modern photograph shows the Dockmaster's House on the small shipbuilding island of Beckholmen in Stockholm. The house is used as the venue for an important meeting in the book.

Find out more on our website:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-tsr/index.html

The image shows a small beige house built in classical style. The main block is three bays wide by two storeys high and it has a pediment with an oculus above. There are single window extensions on both sides and a door in the centre. The house is approached via climbing drive beyond a gate and hedge. There are trees on the left. The front cover of 'The Stockholm Run' is shown in the top right corner.

March 31. Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility! What trans author has inspired you the most?
I have a friend who’s written several books, who is now transitioning but did not identify as trans when writing them, and they still carry her deadname… so I’m delicately putting her to one side.
So I’m going (and I’m not the first) with Charlie Jane Anders, with an honourable mention for Sarah McBride.

A game of secrets and lies. ‘Bloody Orkney’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland, mainly in Orkney, during World War Two. It uses many real settings.

Although its main focus is Orkney, the central characters also seek to resolve a crisis at Gruinard Bay in Wester Ross, the real-world site of secret biological warfare experiments during the war. This modern view shows Gruinard House and Bay.

Find out more on my website:
http://www.kenlussey.com/blork/index.html

This modern image shows a view from amongst trees over a bay to a shoreline of sand and rocks beyond which is a large white-harled house in the centre of the frame comprising a tower house with a large lower extension to its left. In the background, wooded and rocky slopes climb out of the picture. The front cover of ‘Bloody Orkney’ is shown in the bottom right corner.

30/3: Do you label your works as LGBTQIA+? Why or why not?
I don’t. My books aren’t aimed at any one group, whether LGBTQIA+ or not. I don’t want someone to think ‘Three Kinds of North’ isn’t for them just because it centres an F-F relationship. I prefer to embrace the possibility that that person might get to that point and be sufficiently engaged with the characters to keep on reading anyway.

Finished reading The Sunbearer Trials and I really liked it! I haven't read YA in ages, but this was a good one. I liked teens behaving like actual teens, I liked that the MC was not a brooding loner but a likable guy with friends, and I absolutely adored all the detail and fun references that went into the world building. It is a colorful, exciting, likable book.
... that ends on a cliffhanger so now I gotta read the next one 😄

Cover of The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas, featuring Theo, the main character, who is a brown-skinned, dark-haired trans boy with quetzal wings.