Marianne Gordon

    The Gilded Crown, HarperVoyager       My debut novel, The Gilded Crown , is now published! Having a book finished and out there is something of a dream come true, and it's a real honour to be publishing with HarperVoyager.    I've been writing since I was a child and I've always known it was what I wanted to do. I think it emerged from a complete paralysis about what I should morph my life into; pirate, firefighter, astronaut, soldier, I was spoiled for choice at a young age and very privileged to be in a position to become whatever I wanted to be (well, except perhaps pirate, but there's still time). As a writer, you can be anything and everything, you can study a thousand different areas of research (for the GC I read up on medieval medicine, herbology, and raven care, just to name a few), and become a thousand people. It is freedom, pure and simple, to cloak yourself in the fur of whatever beast you'd like to become. I have soared and galloped and now I'm

Shark Heart: a Love Story, by Emily Habeck Warning, spoilers! When I read the blurb for this book I didn't take the premise too seriously, thinking a story about a man turning into a shark could only be so poignant. How incredibly wrong I was! The book is surreal, weird and wonderful. Shark Heart follows the lives of two characters affected by a medical phenomenon of animal mutation; a gradual onset of symptoms that heralds the complete transformation of a human being into an animal. Recently married, their whole lives ahead, a young couple - Wren and Lewis - realise that Lewis has a Carcharodon carcharias mutation: he's going to turn into a great white shark. The book follows their individual adaptation to this diagnosis, flashing back on occasion to the transformation of Wren's mother into a komodo dragon. While Wren battles to keep Lewis with her, building him a saltwater pool in the garden, enduring Lewis' fading memories and increasingly violent behaviour, Lewis is

The Menu (2022) Warning, spoilers! I recently watched the Menu, directed by Mark Mylod. I have never written a review for a film before, so bear with me if I haven’t used quite the right format for this sort of thing.  We've all read stories about fine dining experiences that go a bit too far. Three course meals, each consisting of one mouthful of food, leaving guests starving and short a hundred quid. The Michelin-starred restaurant that serves citrus foam which guests have to lick from a plaster mould of the chef's mouth. The Menu takes this feeling of ridiculousness and elevates it, mocking not just the chefs who would offer such food, but also guests who take it seriously.  I went into the film knowing there was a twist and fully expecting that the twist would be that they were all cannibals eating either previous guests or the staff. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say I was half right; the phrase 'eat the rich' feels appropriate.  The

  Silver Nitrate, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Warning, spoilers! I really found a gem in this book. Silver Nitrate is a clever, slow-burning horror, which combines old-school cinematography with Nazi occultism in such an effortless match that I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before. You can feel the love of old feature films and ‘90s era technology bleeding from the page, twisted through with hauntings and failed rituals to create a really unique read. The pace was much slower than I was expecting; there’s a steady and considered build-up with nothing particularly supernatural happening until well into the second half. The first part is foundation-laying, and while it could have run the risk of being boring, it kept the balance perfectly between information-gathering, character building and plot momentum. The background film theory, the lore, the film technology of the ‘90s, could have felt like too much exposition, but on the contrary it was one of the highlights of the book for me,