Join me this week as I enjoy being snowed in on the Orkney Islands, watching the flakes fall as I'm tucked into my gable room with my books. Listen as I discuss British folktale and take a deep dive into my most read author of 2025.

This week I'll be considering The Land of Mist and Magic by Philip Parker and taking a deep dive on fantasy author V. E. Schwab. We'll discuss The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, A Darker Shade of Magic, This Savage Song and Vicious.

References made

Cardews - Oxford based tea and coffee retailers. Found in the Covered Market.

Daunt Books - British independent bookshop chain. 

Chloé Hayden - Autistic Australian YouTuber, actor and activist.

Patience - British–Belgian detective drama based in York.

Geek Girl - Book series by Holly Smale and Netflix series about a quirky young girl tackling the modelling industry.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder - 2019 novel by Holly Jackson and Netflix series about a cold case that a school girl decides to crack.

Stonehenge - Britain’s most famous stone circle, found on Salisbury Plain, alongside a range of other significant Neolithic sites.

Marginalia - Doodles found in the margins of manuscripts. Typically strange animals and knights on snails.

Lady Godiva - 11th century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman best known for riding naked through the streets of Coventry.

Robin Hood - Outlaw hero best known for stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Depicted in Disney as a fox.

Beowulf - Anglo-Saxon tale of a hero’s battle against supernatural monsters in a historic Germanic landscape.

Hagiography - a saint’s life or biography of a saint, popular during the medieval period.

Selkie - Seal people, who shed their skins to become humans on land.

Sarah J Maas - American fantasy author best known for A Court of Thorns and Roses series and Throne of Glass series.

Cassandra Clare - American fantasy author best known for The Mortal Instruments and the invention of Shadowhunters.

J. R. R. Tolkien - Oxford professor and creator of Middle Earth.

C. S. Lewis - Oxford academic and creator of Narnia.

Philip Pullman - British author most famous for His Dark Materials, a series set in a world where souls manifest on the outside of people’s bodies.

* Addie LaRue was actually published in 2020 * 

Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde’s most notorious character, who sold his soul to a painting for eternal youth. Titular character of The Picture of Dorian Grey.

Blackwell’s Bookshop - Oxford’s most famous bookshop, now a chain and found in most academic cities.

Byronic hero - Proud and brooding romantic heroes, inspired by Lord Byron. Think Rochester in Jane Eyre.

The Name of the Wind - Fantasy novel by American author Patrick Rothfuss. First in the incomplete Kingkiller trilogy.

Atonement - Award winning novel by Ian McEwan, published in 2001, set during the interwar period and Second World War.

Voldemort - Nose-less villain of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

Vecna - Nose-less villain of Netflix/Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things TV series.

DC - Comic book publishers and film producers, known for Superman and Batman stories.

Metropolis - Fictional American city in the DC universe, home to Superman.

Gotham - Corrupt fictional American city where crime bosses rule and Batman attempts to battle them.

J. K. Rowling - Author of Harry Potter and the Cormoran Strike novels.

Leigh Bardugo - American fantasy author best known for the Six of Crows duology.

Bookworm - Australian film starring Elijah Wood and Nell Fisher about a bookworm child.

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