Philip Womack
Treasured Schooldays
A cursed Elizabethan manuscript holds the secret to untold wealth; a love affair blossoms between the wife of a psychopathic paraplegic and a young schoolmaster; teachers scheme in shadowy cloisters; an Anglican cleric leans towards Popery. These are the ingredients of Jeremy Simpson's pleasant new novel; and he has got the mixture almost right.
Luke Howard is asked to edit a sixteenth-century text set down by a renegade Catholic bishop called de Witte in order to further the Anglican cause of Melbury College, where Howard is an ambitious deputy headmaster. Evil forces – the local Evangelist priest, masters who want to take girls in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It soon becomes clear that what we have in our hands (or, given its hefty 600-odd pages, on our desks) is a peculiar kind of haunted-house drama.'
Patrick McCabe's 'Poguemahone' is 'ambitious and disturbing', says @funesdamemorius.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/it-started-with-a-kiss
'This is entertainment of the highest class.'
@NJCooper_crime reviews new thrillers by Mick Herron, Kassandra Montag, @LVaughanwrites, @AuthorSJBolton, @ajaychow, @tombradby, @SaraParetsky, @writejemmawayne & @GillianMAuthor.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/may-2022-crime-round-up
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa