Local Author’s Book Reveals Why Devizine Isn’t Funny Anymore

Devizine can reveal how a new book by a local author might possibly be the reason why Devizine isn’t as funny as it used to beโ€ฆ.

Devizine, it used to be funny, but sadly it seems it’s not so much anymore. Who took the banana skin from under its flip-flop? Who failed to give it a raspberry on the bouncy belly? Editor and creator of Devizine, Darren Worrow might have discovered why.

He said, โ€œIt’s a disgrace. This so-called author Darren Worrow has channelled all his pathetic attempts at humour into his new book Murder at the Scribbling Horse, and hardly bothered sharing anything the slightest bit amusing here on Devizine, as he once did; typical liberties from a loony leftie! And now he expects me to blow my own trumpet and sing his praises; what a pretentious twat! Shamelessly plugging his own book on his own website is surely proof.โ€

โ€œSet in the fictional Wiltshire market town of Slapam-on-the-Fye, which is nothing like any real Wiltshire market town you might know of, it claims to be a murder-mystery, but the only true thing it murders is English literature.โ€

โ€œNeither is there any subtlety in it either, like there is with Devizine,โ€ Worrow waffled on sorrowfully wallowing. โ€œWorrow takes no prisoners, has gone all out and created an absolute work of filth; an offensive joke book with a sham narrative, just so he can say disgusting things about various celebrities, politicians and anyone else he doesnโ€™t like, despite the good honest work they’re doing to keep Britain free from logic and empathy.โ€

โ€œWith the mouth of a sailor, it downright disregards any level of intelligence locals might possess, and paints them all as so utterly idiotic the narration of the story has to be conveyed through the point of view of the pub dog; I donโ€™t think thatโ€™s funny at all. The dog is a depressing nihilist, who uses the opportunity to put the human world to rights, rather than getting on with telling the story, thatโ€™s why it stacks up over 500 pages. 500 plus pages of meandering woke filth, I might add.โ€

โ€œUsing a facade of a murder mystery, in which the frontman to a tribute act is murdered in the pub whilst they organise a fundraising music festival, as the plot thickens like moulded yogurt around his genitalia, it goes as far as disgracefully making a mockery out of petty local politics too. It’s the biggest crime against pop since David Bowie and Mick Jaggerโ€™s cover of Dancing in the Street. I’d rather lick that yogurt off than buy this book, but that’s probably what this sick perverted tyrant wants us to do.โ€

โ€œYou’re not going to enjoy reading it, as tea can scold you if dropped in your lap through laughing too much. Therefore I call upon Steer Karma and the government to ban this book for health and safety reasons.โ€

โ€œThis thing wouldnโ€™t have been published under Farage, you know? And thousands of flagpoles will now have to be erected to counteract the unpatriotic damage done, at the taxpayer’s expense too.โ€

The author of the book, Darren Worrow, rebukes comments made by the Devizine editor, Darren Worrow. โ€œThat guy is as thick as a Boxing Day turd and pissing into the wind,โ€ he said. โ€œOther than the fact I have released a new book, the rest is slanderous lies and Devizine will be hearing from my lawyers. Murder at the Scribbling Horse is a fascinating psychological study and critique of the modern world, questioning our nonacceptance of aging and the social and political issues it raises; with added knob jokes.โ€

The author became irate, claiming, โ€œfor eight long years I’ve been tirelessly promoting everyone else for peanuts. I’ve not even had the opportunity of taking a bath since, and I look like a Yeti past its sell by date. It’s about time I thought about myself for a change, and everyone can bloody well return the favour by buying my book!โ€

Eighties post-punk sensations Johnny Bunion and the Verrucasโ€™ most successful album, The Legend of Castle Grey Scholl, 1981.

Whatever happened to Johnny Bunion? His legend burnt out long before his candle ever did.

But the more pressing question must be, was it connected to the murder at the Scribbling Horse public house in the narrow-minded Wiltshire market town of Slapam-on-the-Fye, some forty plus years later? And if so, how?

To answer this you’ll need to research, and my book, Murder at the Scribbling Horse will be the only way to do that.

If there’s ever any proceeds from the book, they will go to a much needed new Lynx Africa deodorant set, and a Brazilian back, sack and crack wax for the obnoxious author; the twat needs it, he looks like Posie from the Flumpsโ€™ rustic vajazzle.

Seriously though, being funny is the only thing I’m serious about. If you laughed at any part of this internal press release you’re a bit weird, and the ideal target audience for my book! You’re going to laugh a kazillion times (thatโ€™s a zillion zillions) more with a copy Murder at the Scribbling Horse in your grubby mitts. And even if youโ€™ve no sense of humour, you know a good Christmas present idea when you see one!

You can buy the paperback online here. And the e-book here. It’s out for global distribution but buying direct from Lulu cuts out the middle man and gives the best royalties to the authors.ย 

Not for sale to children or the over sensitive, though; as if I needed to say!

Murder at the Scribbling Horse is available at Devizes Books for a reduced price of ยฃ20, and next Saturday 22nd November, I’ll be in the shop praying to the Norse god of biscuits someone might stop by and purchase a signed copy at the super reduced price of ยฃ20!

If you cannot make it, you can message me and I’ll personally deliver you a copy if you live locally. I still need to work out posting & packaging costs, so message me if it needs posting and Iโ€™ll let you know about that asap. Happy reading…well, I say that but do I really mean it, I mean, really?!


Trending…..

Lady Nade; Sober!

Dry January, anyone? Well, Lady Nade just plunged into an outdoor 4ยฐC eucalyptus sauna for a social media reel. But whilst I’d require a stiff drink to do such, our beloved Somerset soul singer says she’s swapping ice-cold cocktails for ice-cold baths. There must be warmer ways to promote a January single?! Sober is thatโ€ฆ

2025 on Devizine; Review of the Year; Part 1, Jan-June

If past years seem to be racing by me on roller-skates, now theyโ€™re in Formula 1 cars! 2025, in a word, was โ€œaverage,โ€ though the Devizine annual stats fell for a second year, at 6% lower than 2024; you lot still here?! Iโ€™m not concerned about that, you filthy traitors; youโ€™ve been digesting the clickbaitโ€ฆ

Awesome! Talk in Code Immortalised as Lego Minifigures!

Ah, let’s talk about Talk in Code one more time this year, because we’re secret Talkers here, and everything has been awesome this year for them, but now they’re being immortalised as Lego minifigures! Surely, the piece of resistance of local merch, it doesn’t get better than this! Lego minifigures have become something of aโ€ฆ

Still Alice at The Wharf Theatre Raises Dementia Awareness

Valedictorian graduate of Bates College in Maine, and with a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, neuroscientist Lisa Genova self-published her debut novel, Still Alice in 2007. Acquired for publishing two years later, Still Alice made The New York Times Best Seller list, was adapted for the stage by Christine Mary Dunford of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company, and spurred a 2014 movie by Memento Films, winning Julianne Moore an Academy Award. Under the direction of John Winterton, The Wharf Theatre brings this poignant play to Devizesโ€ฆโ€ฆ

It’s lovely to be back at Devizesโ€™ cosy and communal theatre. Ian assigned himself our theatre critic and while his brilliant inside knowledge is gratefully appreciated, I figured I fancy this one, as I have a personal angle on the plot. Alzheimerโ€™s Society suggests โ€œevery 3 minutes someone in the UK develops dementia,โ€ therefore I imagine many others will find relevance in it too, and if not, might one day.

We found it amusing at the beginning, my Nan in Dad’s car still wearing her slippers for a party, and other trivial mishaps. But the last time I saw her I was saddened to note she didn’t remember me, as she spoke to me of her โ€œhusband,โ€ rather than address him as โ€œgrandad.โ€ My children were young and understandably apprehensive about going into the care home. But when they plucked up courage my boy stood before her and she was delighted to be face-to-face with who she assumed was me. Here was the relieving point; I realised she hadn’t forgotten me, she just didn’t recognise me because thirty-plus years was missing from her memory; thank you genetics!

The journey between these two points in time was arduous for her and our family. For her it went from confusion to frustration and onto an immune state of obviousness. Lisa Genova wrote Still Alice in first person narrative from the point of view of Alice, a university professor at the height of her career who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimerโ€™s disease; it mirrors what we went through, and sheds a fascinating light onto what my Nan must’ve gone through too.

The play honours the narrative perspective by an ingenious method of a personification of Alice’s psyche. With a dual-Alice on stage, the real Alice, played sublimely by Linda Swann, says what she believes she should say, while her conscious shadowing her, equally delivered with skill by a younger version of Alice, Sophie Kerr, offers the audience an insight into what she is thinking. Just as I suggested, with the lost time of my Nanโ€™s mind, Alice perceives herself as being younger, so this age gap works as her sense of reason, until reason runs short in her mind and her consciousness is reduced to the childlike drawing of pictures.

There are many elements to the happenings in the play which anyone who has experienced a loved one going through Alzheimerโ€™s or dementia will recognise, and tears might trickle. There’s periods of thought-provoking awkward silence, intense confrontation at others, when the confusion turns to frustration. There’s poignant reality and touching scenes as the family come to terms with Alice’s deteriorating mind. There’s thought processes from Alice exposed, causing you to identify with her greater than that of her family; a window into the mindset of anyone suffering with this terrible condition.

Overall, akin to a film like Schindler’s List, this is a play you might not want to face, oh, but you must, and you should. 

Still Alice is evoking brilliance, you will leave impelled to discuss the subject further. It raises awareness of this horrifying condition and doesnโ€™t meander from this for any purposes of entertainment. On the impaired particularly, the sentiment is pragmatic, but also in her relationship with her family and their emotions, all poignantly represented and acted with believable precision by John Myles, as the calm under pressure husband, Adam Sturges as the solicitude son, and Kezia Richards as the estranged daughter.

Still Alice raises awareness about Alzheimerโ€™s or dementia in a similar way as Barry Levinsonโ€™s Rain Man raised awareness of autism, but only if we could have seen into the mind of Raymond would it be any more comparable. Thatโ€™s the beauty of theatre, this is a play with the power to change you.ย 

Still Alice runs at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes from September 1st until September 6th 2025, Tickets HERE or at Devizes Books.


World Alzheimerโ€™s Day is Sunday 21st September. You can find more information about local dementia groups at Alzheimerโ€™s Support, and sign up for their Walk to Remember at Wilton House, HERE.


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Ha! Let’s Laugh at Hunt Supporters!

Christmas has come early for foxes and normal humans with any slither of compassion remaining, as the government announced the righteous move to ban trailโ€ฆ

Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward โ€œEโ€) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunesโ€ฆ

Burning the Midday Oil at The Muck

Highest season of goodwill praises must go to Chrissy Chapman today, who raised over ยฃ500 (at the last count) for His Grace Childrenโ€™s Centre inโ€ฆ

Killers, Catalysts and Devizes Author Dave McKennaโ€™s New Novelette

On impulse I speculated, just short of a quarter way through this book and at the conjunction the format of the narrative is sussed, that if the author, Devizesโ€™ Dave McKenna, has a favourite Quentin Tarantino film it might be my favourite too, the lesser acclaimed Jackie Brown. Not for its plagiarism of blaxploitation nor usage of derogatory slangs, rather for the multiple point-of-view conclusion, because The Killer & The Catalyst follows this formula throughout, and this is what makes it engagingโ€ฆ.

This and breakneck volatility, conspiracy inducing, disloyal and sadistic action from nearly every character and the intense velocity itโ€™s all delivered with. Coincidently, Dave cites Tarantino as an influence at the back matter, alongside Harlan Coben and Stephen King. Some of the bookโ€™s settings are drawn from actual features and places in Devizes. Most commonly the now closed and speculated as haunted Roundway psychiatric hospital, and an alley besides it in which Dave elucidates his inspiration for the storyโ€™s events set there were developed from a real incident at the location. Itโ€™s with these eerie settings, familiar if youโ€™re local, I find understanding for citing King as an influence, especially to begin with; it feels like a horror, yet while the book has an unnerving ambience, a crime thriller might better pigeonhole it.

It’s causally written in a loose style with nothing academic about it, making it simple to digest, as if the narrator is on equal level to the characters, as if rambling the yarn to his mate in the pub. Breathes a sense of reality into it; the characters talk like you and I, therefore you identity, why not the narrator too? I like this relaxed and contemporary approach, particularly suits the plot and macho target audience; lads need to read more, and if thatโ€™s the case, this might be the book for them. Hyper popcorn-munching movie violence fashion this is.

Apostrophes are used instead of speech marks. This, and the abbreviation of okay to โ€˜OKโ€™ out of speech makes the grammar police inside me cringe, to be honest. Such usages and the out of speech line, โ€œThat was a piece of piss,โ€ implies this is hardly Dickens quality! But Iโ€™m willing to overlook and ignore these niggly criticisms for this book, because Dave McKenna can weave a story, dammit. He can evoke an appropriate mood within his readers, twist it, and he can suspend you on the edge of your seat. That makes him an author, not an ability to whisk long and misunderstood words (like wot I do to make me sound more intelligent than I is!)

Identifying the protagonist from the antagonist is questionable, when this periodic method of returning to the same opening scene with each point-of-view occurs, and thatโ€™s genius and a narrative difficult to construct. It conveys everything is not as it might seem from the angle of each individual and engages you into understanding the bigger picture. That is what makes The Killer & The Catalyst an absorbing and worthwhile read.

With the current state of the literature industry being itโ€™s who you are rather than how good you can write, I wouldnโ€™t imagine finding this on a supermarket shelf alongside ghost-written celebrity autobiographies. This is an example proving the asset of self-publishing, that which a mainstream publisher wouldnโ€™t touch, doesnโ€™t mean a person hasnโ€™t got an exceptional story to tell and the ability in which to write it, it simply means itโ€™s not commercially viable.

People merely need to be brave and take a lucky dip on a rising author, rather than accept what Waterstones throw at them. The Killer & The Catalyst is the good example of this, should you wish to be held in suspense and driven to question which characters were right and which were wrong, not forgoing indulging in some nasty scenes of violence to boot!

You can get The Killer & The Catalyst as paperback or Kindle on Amazon, or pop into Devizes Books for this page-turner, and youโ€™ll look forward to reading future yarns of Dave McKenna, of that Iโ€™m certain.


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Discover the perfect destination for Walk Your Dog Month at Nightingale Wood

Image credit: Forestry England/Crown copyright.

Forestry England Nightingale Wood invites dog owners to celebrate Walk Your Dog Month this January…..

Walk Your Dog Month is a great opportunity to build your bond with your four-legged family members. It can be tempting to stay indoors at this time of year, but regular walks are essential for a dogโ€™s physical and mental health. The good news is, theyโ€™re pretty good for ownersโ€™ health too! So, grab a lead and some poo bags, and read on for Nightingale Woodโ€™s top tips for a brilliant Walk Your Dog Month.

Beat the January blues

With festivities over, January can be a difficult month of cold weather and long nights. Spending time in nature with your best friend by your side is a fantastic way to enjoy natural light and fresh air. Physical activity can increase your energy levels and reduce stress. Even a short walk can clear your mind and lift your mood.

Fun for the whole family

Fun awaits the whole family at Nightingale Wood. Spot wildlife, build dens, and splash in puddles.

Dog-friendly environment

With clearly marked paths and plenty of space to roam, Nightingale Wood is the perfect spot for exploring. Choose from three easy-to-follow walking trails or create your own route from the network of surfaced trails and forest roads. There are so many scents and sounds to explore, your dog will never get tired of returning to the forest.

Build your fitness

Fancy trying something different? Look out around the trails for pieces of fitness equipment which have been installed as part of the Great Western Community Forest project.

Canine community

With fellow dog walkers enjoying the forest, there is always someone to pass the time of day with during a walk. Human connection is one of the NHSโ€™s essential ingredients for positive wellbeing. You never know whose day you might change with a smile โ€“ or who might change yours.

Donโ€™t miss the chance to celebrate Walk Your Dog Month at Nightingale Wood. Lace up your shoes and head into the woods for an unforgettable adventure.

For more information, visit https://www.forestryengland.uk/nightingale-wood


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Winter Festival/Christmas/Whatever!

This is why I love you, my readers, see?! At the beginning of the week I put out an article highlighting DOCAโ€™s Winter Festival, andโ€ฆ

Devizes Winter Festival This Friday and More!

Whoโ€™s ready for walking in the winter wonderland?! Devizes sets to magically transform into a winter wonderland this Friday when The Winter Festival and Lanternโ€ฆ

Snow White Delight: Panto at The Wharf

Treated to a sneaky dress rehearsal of this year’s pantomime at Devizesโ€™ one and only Wharf Theatre last night, if forced to sum it upโ€ฆ

Sing Another Love Song with Rosie Jay

Second impressive single from young Salisbury singer-songwriter Rosie Jay is released today. Sing Another Love Song; a sound of the summerโ€ฆ..

Her debut breakup track I Don’t Give a Damn, had an interesting hook, this has too, but is far more optimistic, and eternally beguiling. It is, technically, the better of the two, revealing a potential for eminence in its confident and outstanding delivery.ย 

If it hints of connotations the infatuation of the theme is one-sided on the part of the author, itโ€™s open-ended for interpretation; maybe the love interest simply doesnโ€™t share their passion for a good love song?! Thatโ€™s their issue! 

For thatโ€™s what this is, breezy and cool, acoustic and pop-folky, with the perfect flowery scent of Kirsty MacColl in both theme, musically and vocally. Such is the magic of local producer Jolyon Dixon, to filter the inner superlative of an upcoming artist and nurture it to the forefront. And in such youโ€™ll hear a similarity with Rosie to his duo Illingworth with John Smith, should youโ€™ve caught them on our live music circuit. Then again, the whole gypsy-esque vibe, there’s hints of Irish, and I’m awarding the Corrs as another comparison; as with MacColl, these are high accolades indeed!

Here this now, itโ€™ll brighten up your day. Yet, gorgeous as this song is, with the blossoming potential it displays, I believe itโ€™ll be rudimentary in a short period of time, and the best of Rosie Jay is yet to come. You need to be here to hear it when it does. 


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REVIEW โ€“ Devizes Arts Festival โ€“ Belinda Kirk @ Cheese Hall 11th June 2024

Right Out Of The Comfort Zone

by Andy Fawthrop

Following a lively few days of entertaining and varied events over this last weekend, weโ€™re now into Devizes Arts Festivalโ€™s second week.ย 

I decided to trundle along to the Cheese Hall earlier this afternoon to find out what Belinda Kirk might have to say for herself.ย  Stuff about being adventurous, Iโ€™d heard.ย  I settled down into my seat and awaited a comfortable afternoon chat.ย  But an hour later things had changed somewhat.

Belinda Kirk is a world-record holding explorer, researcher and a leading campaigner promoting the benefits of โ€œadventureโ€ on wellbeing. Sheโ€™s written the best-selling, award-nominated, book โ€œAdventure Mind: Transform Your Wellbeing By Choosing Challengeโ€.  Sheโ€™s led dozens of international expeditions, numerous youth development challenges, and pioneered inclusive adventures for people with disabilities. She established the Explorers Connect organisation and website in order to spread the word about the life-changing impact of adventure. Sheโ€™s encouraged over 30,000 ordinary people to engage in transformational outdoor challenges. And most recently sheโ€™s faced her greatest challenge: to continue to live adventurously since becoming a parent.

Belinda spoke for about 45 minutes before hosting a Q&A session.  In her talk she emphasised that she was not just talking about โ€œbeing in Natureโ€ (the benefits of which are now well documented), but about engaging with the world in a much more vigorous way by taking up personal and/ or team challenges.  She was talking jungles, deserts, remote places, open seas, and I was just beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable.

Outlining how participating in the Duke of Edinburghโ€™s Award Scheme as a sixteen year-old had been a complete sliding doors moment for her, she described how she got the bug to get โ€œout thereโ€.  Over the next few years she joined, and later led, several expeditions, worked for five or six years with that Big Softie Bear Grylls, worked as a diver for a year, and took part in a row-round-Britain challenge.  I was fully awake by now and starting to feel how exceptionally lazy Iโ€™ve been all my life.

She discovered how impactful it was to undertake both large and small adventures.  She saw with her own eyes time and time again how people of all ages found these challenges to be, literally, life-changing. And it was then that she began to research the psychology of what was actually going on here.  She described in great detail a major expedition sheโ€™d led to cross Nicaragua coast-to-coast with a group of severely disabled youngsters, including (incredibly to me) climbing to the summit of an active volcano.  And there were many other examples and stories too.  Much against my will, I was actually on the edge of my seat listening to this stuff.  And I wasnโ€™t alone either โ€“ the rest of the packed audience seemed pretty enraptured too.  Sheโ€™s an enthusiastic, energetic and very articulate speaker.

Belinda spoke of moving from your โ€œcomfort zoneโ€ to your โ€œstretch zoneโ€ and heading towards your โ€œpanic zoneโ€.  It sounded like jargon, but it wasnโ€™t โ€“ I was definitely on the same page by now.  Pushing yourself has many benefits in enriching your life โ€“ giving yourself new skills and confidence, finding out what youโ€™re really capable of, and (crucially) having some fun.   Iโ€™m having some of that!

She finished with a lively Q&A session, before signing copies of her book โ€œAdventure Mind: Transform Your Wellbeing By Choosing Challengeโ€.  But I couldnโ€™t wait around for that โ€“ I needed to get outside into my โ€œstretch zoneโ€ to swim the K&A Canal, sort out the problems in The Crammer, and single-handedly remove all the traffic-lights across D-Town.  Then I might sit down with a well-deserved cup of tea and a biscuit.

A solidly entertaining afternoon, and another absolute gem from DAF.

You can find out more about Belindaโ€™s adventuring at www.explorersconnect.com/

The Devizes Arts Festival continues until Sunday 16th June at various venues around the town.ย  Tickets can be booked at Devizes Books or online at www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk


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Broken Shadows; New Novel from Wiltshire Author Sorrel Pitts

I arrived in a Wiltshire village aged fourteen from suburban Essex, anxious this was my new home. While my parents awaited keys from the estate agent, they sent my elder brother and I to the shop for milk. Wandering the lane an elderly gent wished us the customary โ€œmorninโ€™.โ€ It left me bewildered; why was he talking to us, he couldnโ€™t possibly know us?! This amusing archived memory of an introduction to the way of life in rural Wiltshire popped into my tiny mind recently, jogged by a book Iโ€™ve been readingโ€ฆโ€ฆ

You mayโ€™ve seen it on social media ahead of its release on 6th Feb. If youโ€™re active on our music scene you may know the author, Sorrel Pitts, often found at open mics, accompanied by Vince Bell. I caught her at one in Great Cheverellโ€™s Bell and was astounded by her songwriting ability; now I realise I was only skimming the surface.

Sorrel is undoubtedly well travelled but raised in Wiltshire, though if itโ€™s not the picture-painting words describing our landscapes, culture and mannerisms giving this game away, itโ€™s the characters reflecting on foreign lives they’ve built for themselves in comparison to the sensations of a homecoming which illustrates Wiltshire life so vividly, hence my jogged recollection.

The village in Broken Shadows is fictional, but believably set in the Marlborough Downs, west of the town; if you know the area you could hazard a guess to the inspiration. Sorrel was born here, and from the tracks to the primary school and pub, to sacred neolithic stones, and down to the wildlife and weeds defining a scene around a dilapidated barn, her remarkable proficiency of illustrative writing is abounded.

As Steinbeck paints an image of rural Oklahoma to the point you can smell the cotton on the drylands, Sorrel equals in building a visual environment we’re familiar with. Perhaps Hardy would therefore be a better geographical comparison, and like him, Sorrel exemplifies subtle differences between rural working class and the affluence of classic Brontรซ characters. Though this is modern, mentioning a lack of internet connection, covid tests, or housing developments in the village, as two characters return to the village they grew up in, to recollect their rural upbringings.

With the scene set superbly, you’re in a picture frame, prepped for fictional first-person narrative, building in intriguing layers, diary-like over a two character’s POVs, those of Tom and Anna. The pair begin unattached though schoolfriends, are reunited through a similar circumstance of returning there, Anna to recover from an operation, Tom to care for his dying father. In this connection thereโ€™s an archetypal narrative of forbidden love sidelining, the thrill of lust against commitment, amidst an unfolding mystery, Tomโ€™s brotherโ€™s unsolved brutal murder in the village when they were children. Anything further might be considered spoilers, needless to suggest, Sorrel rocks the boat of the stereotypical tranquillity of rural Wiltshire, with this mysterious loss and the unveiling its developing backstory.

It takes time to unravel the truth of what really happened, the pace of reading steady, as characters are introduced through various other family or village happenings, and varying amounts of suspicion you will cast upon them. I certainly had my chosen suspects, but when the revelation arrived, the penny will not have dropped, and Sorrel accelerates to breakneck speeds as the climax unfolds, leaving you breathless and unable to put this book down. I swear, right, my wife had to take my Kindle off me so I could get on the school run!

Not sure I like the term โ€œpage-turner,โ€ to describe a novel, and until halfway I wouldnโ€™t use it anyway, but if the suspense building in layers will tempt you back to it, I recommend you go for it. Feeling youโ€™re close to summit of the tale when all will be revealed will tie you to the characters and their circumstance personally, and that, my friend, is the sign of a fantastic novel.

It could be set anywhere and would be a great read, the fact itโ€™s local makes it seem that bit more real. Youโ€™ll pick up on cultural references and geographic locations, identify with the surroundings, architecture and particularly, the mannerisms of the villagers; itโ€™ll leave it convinced you know Tom and Anna. The stunning wordsmithery of Sorrel is elementary, being the account is written akin to diary entries, thereโ€™s nothing to confound you, but the juxtaposition shows that pure competence to weave a convincing, heartstring plucking, and edge-of-your seat story. Sorrel can write, and I was hooked, Sir Michael Parkinson too, apparently! Ah, at least Iโ€™ve one thing in common with Parky!

Sorrel has a book signing at Devizes Books on Saturday 17th Feb, find the book available there, or at White Horse Books in Marlborough. Find digital copies on Amazon here.


Trending….

Steatopygous go Septic

If you believe AI, TikTok and the rest of it all suppress Gen Zโ€™s outlets to convey anger and rage, resulting in a generationโ€ฆ

The Wurzels To Play At FullTone 2026!

If Devizesโ€™ celebrated FullTone Festival is to relocate to Whistley Roadโ€™s Park Farm for next summerโ€™s extravaganza, what better way to give it theโ€ฆ

DOCAโ€™s Young Urban Digitals

In association with PF Events, Devizes Outdoor Celebratory Arts introduces a Young Urban Digitals course in video mapping and projection mapping for sixteen toโ€ฆ

Jol Roseโ€™s Ragged Stories

Thereโ€™s albums Iโ€™ll go in blind and either be pleasantly surprised, or not. Then thereโ€™s ones which I know Iโ€™m going to love beforeโ€ฆ

Vince Bell in the 21st Century!

Unlike Buck Rogers, who made it to the 25th century six hundred years early, Devizesโ€™ most modest acoustic virtuoso arrives at the 21st justโ€ฆ