Would you like to win a free book? I’m hosting a giveaway to celebrate authors from underrepresented backgrounds. The following books are all being published by people who are in my WriteNow 2020 group. All you have to do to win one is:

a) Follow me on Instagram and/or Tiktok

b) Like my giveaway post

c) Comment the book you’d like to win and your country of residence

There will be 1 UK winner and 1 international winner. Entries close at 23.59 Sunday 13th August 2023.

1. Neon Roses by Rachel Dawson

Blurb: Eluned Hughes is stuck. It’s 1984 in a valley in south Wales: the miners’ strike is ravaging her community; her sister’s swanned off with a Thatcherite policeman; and her boyfriend Lloyd keeps bringing up marriage. And if they play ’99 Red Balloons’ on the radio one more time, she might just lose her mind. Then the fundraising group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners comes down from London, and she meets June, a snaggle-toothed blonde in a too-big leather jacket. Suddenly, Eluned isn’t stuck any more – she’s in freefall.

Themes: LGBTQIA, romance, genre

Availability: Hardback available now! Link to buy on bookshop.org here.

2. I Don’t Want to Talk About Home by Suad Aldarra

Blurb: Growing up in conservative Saudi Arabia, Suad Aldarra felt stifled by the strictures placed on women. She yearned for the vibrant Syrian streets of her family’s origin. When the opportunity arose to study at Damascus University, she jumped at the chance to move to a city she loved and to experience a degree of freedom she’d never known. But when the war started, everything changed. Suddenly Suad was thrown into a world of relentless pressure desperately looking for a way out. Her degree in software engineering was the saving grace that allowed her to travel to Ireland on a working visa. Yet reaching safety came at a price …

Themes: Memoir, war, migration

Availability: Paperback available now! Link to buy on bookshop.org here.

3.. The Tidal Year by Freya Bromley

Blurb: Freya is still searching. For four years, she’s been looking for a way to fill the empty space her brother’s death left behind. Ready for another distraction, Freya decides to swim every tidal pool in Britain in a year with her friend Miri. The adventure takes them from a pool hidden in the cliffs of fishing-village Polperro to the quarry lagoon of Abereiddi via Trinkie Wick where locals meet each year to give the pool wall a fresh lick of paint. As Freya travels further from London, she finds herself closer to memories of her brother. With every swim, and every stranger they meet in the water, the challenge becomes more than just a way to explore the coast, but a journey of self-discovery.

Themes: Memoir, grief, nature

Availability: Hardback available now! Link to buy on bookshop.org here.

4. Too Hot To Sleep by Elspeth Wilson

Blurb: Too Hot to Sleep explores the way we inhabit our bodies from the perspective of a queer, disabled, neurodivergent artist.

Themes: Poetry, LGBTQIA, coming of age

Availability: Pamphlet available now! Link to buy on Bent Key Press here.

5. A Good Year by Polis Loizou

Blurb: Rural Cyprus, 1925. Despo is recently married, heavily pregnant and deeply afraid. The twelve days of Christmas are beginning – the time when, according to local folklore, creatures known as kalikantzari come up from Hell to wreak havoc. Meanwhile, her husband Loukas has troubles of his own. Struggling with dreams and desires he doesn’t understand, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to an Englishman, a newcomer to the island. In a village wreathed in superstition, Despo and Loukas must protect themselves and their unborn child from ominous forces at play.

Themes: Historical, horror, LGBTQIA

Availability: Paperback available now! Link to buy on Waterstones here.

6. The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers by Samuel Burr

Blurb: Clayton Stumper might be twenty-four years of age, but he dresses like your grandad and drinks sherry like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle to him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune. And as Clay begins to unpick the clues, he uncovers something even the Fellowship have never been able to solve – and it’s a secret that will change everything…

Themes: Cosy mystery

Availability: Pre-order ships 9th May 2024. Link to buy on bookshop.org here.