Around the World in 6 Works of New Fiction 

Let us take you on a reading journey to Panama, Vietnam, the Caribbean, Myanmar (Burma), Georgia and Italy via the pages of some new fiction on our shelves.   

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Explore the shortlisted titles in the Viking Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place category

Here at Stanfords we get a lot of customers asking for recommendations for fiction set in the place they are planning to go so that they can enjoy some in situ reading. With the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards later on this month, we thought we would take a closer look at the shortlisted titles in the Viking Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place category. Perhaps something on the list will inspire your next trip.

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Book Launch: ‘The Tower’ by Flora Carr

Last night we hosted the launch of debut author Flora Carr’s historical novel The Tower.

Three women cross a loch. It is 1567, one of them is pregnant, two of them fretful. The boat takes them to Lochleven castle in the middle of the water. Awaiting them are courtiers braying for blood, hellbent on keeping one of them under lock and key: Mary Queen of Scots.

In the tower, Mary’s maids Frenchwoman, Cuckoo and watchful Scot, Jane are her only allies, and the chamber their entire world. A new reality sets in where they are at the mercy of not only their keepers, but of raging Scotland itself.

In the outside world, Mary’s kin, Queen Elizabeth claims she can do little but write. Downstairs, the shrewd jailor-courtier Margaret Erskine places her daughter-in-law Agnes in the chamber as her pair of eyes. Hope seems futile until the bewitching Lady Seton arrives. Seton’s power shifts everything in the tower and soon a plan is hatched.

But which of them will risk it all to save their mistress? Which woman loves her queen best? The Tower is a triumphant story of desire, grit, God-given power and wiles from a striking new voice in historical fiction.

The Tower is available now for £16.99

Victoria Hislop in Conversation: Stanfords Travel Writers Festival

From Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show in London’s Olympia, The Stanfords Travel Writers Festival welcomes the international bestselling author Victoria Hislop. Victoria divides her time between England and Greece and in 2020, was granted honorary citizenship by the President. She talks to Ann Morgan about why the people and the place have captured her heart so completely, and what makes Greece and its islands so very special.

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What is Travel Fiction? by Janice Pariat

Janice Pariat is the award-winning author of Boats on Land: A collection of Short Stories, Seahorse, and the international best-seller The Nine-Chambered Heart. Her new novel Everything the Light Touches is out with Borough Press, HarperCollins UK. She lives in India. Here she discusses travel fiction:

“What is travel fiction?” a friend asked. 

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The Master of Magical Realism: Gabriel García Márquez

Born in Aracataca, Colombia, on this day in 1928, Gabriel García Marquez is hailed as one of the pioneers of magic realism and perhaps the most prominent voice of Latin American literature. He has received international recognition for his novels, works of non-fiction and collections of short stories and in 1982 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. As today would have been his 91st birthday, we thought we would show you some of our favourite books by Gabriel García Márquez. Continue reading The Master of Magical Realism: Gabriel García Márquez