Discovering the Masterful Storytelling of Alis Hawkins
I had the good fortune to meet Alis Hawkins as she came to our book club meeting where we were able to discuss her writing process and gain insights into the creation of her compelling characters and intricate plotlines.
Discussing your favourite authors books at a meeting is an exciting and rewarding experience for readers and writers alike. It provides a platform to delve deeper into the themes and messages present in the author's works, and encourages thoughtful analysis and discussion among fellow enthusiasts. Meeting Alis allowed us to discuss a wide range of content, from reviews and critiques to personal reflections with the author themselves. Sharing opinions and insights with like-minded readers can lead to new discoveries and appreciation for an author's work, and can foster a sense of community and connection among readers. Overall, discussing a favourite author at a book meeting is a fantastic way to engage with the literature and connect with others who share a passion for great writing.
Alis Hawkins is a talented and skilled author who has quickly become one of my favourites. Her ability to weave rich and detailed stories, set against the backdrop of history, is truly exceptional. I appreciate her attention to detail and the way she is able to bring the past to life in a way that is both immersive and engaging. Her characters are always well-developed, with their own unique quirks and motivations, and her storytelling is both suspenseful and emotionally resonant. I am always excited to pick up a new book by Alis Hawkins, and I look forward to seeing what she has in store for her readers in the future.
Here are a list of her books so far and if you are a fan of historical crime or mystery then these are a must for you.
Let me know what you think.
Love Alis x
Title: Testament
Published: 2019
Book Recommendations - About Book: Salster, England, 1385 Master mason Simon of Kineton is building his magnum opus: a great college to rival any in England. But the Bishop of Salster, hostile to free education, is determined to sabotage Simon’s project. When rumours spread that the mason's son is cursed, the bishop sees an opportunity to undermine both Simon and the college. And everything Simon has worked so hard for could end up crumbling down around him…
Salster, 2019 Damia Miller has been employed to promote penniless Kineton and Dacre college. Delving into the college’s history, she becomes captivated by the vast grotesque painting that has recently been uncovered during renovations. It soon becomes clear to Damia that the painting holds the key to the past – a past which could reveal exactly what she’s been searching for…
Teifi Valley Coroner Series
Title: None So Blind
Date Published 2017
Book Recommendations - About Book: West Wales, 1850. When an old tree root is dug up, the remains of a young woman are found. Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has been dreading this discovery.
He knows exactly whose bones they are.
Working with his clerk, John Davies, Harry is determined to expose the guilty. But the investigation turns up more questions than answers and raises long-buried secrets.
The search for the truth will prove costly. But will Harry and John pay the highest price?
Title: In Two Minds
Date Published: 2019
Book Recommendations - About Book: Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has begun work as the acting coroner of Teifi Valley with solicitor's clerk John Davies as his assistant.
When a faceless body is found on an isolated beach, Harry must lead the inquest. But his dogged pursuit of the truth begins to ruffle feathers. Especially when he decides to work alongside a local doctor with a dubious reputation and experimental theories considered radical and dangerous.
Refusing to accept easy answers might not only jeopardise Harry's chance to be elected coroner permanently, but could, it seems implicate his own family in a crime.
Title:Those Who Know
Date Published: 2020
Book Recommendations - About Book: Harry Probert-Lloyd has inherited the estate of Glanteifi and appointed his assistant John as under-steward. But his true vocation, to be coroner, is under threat. Against his natural instincts, Harry must campaign if he is to be voted as coroner permanently.
On the hustings, Harry and John are called to examine the body of Nicholas Rowland, a pioneering schoolteacher whose death may not be the accident it first appeared. What was Rowland’s real relationship with his eccentric patron, Miss Gwatkyn? And why does Harry’s rival for the post of coroner deny knowing him?
Harry’s determination to uncover the truth threatens to undermine both his campaign and his career.
Title: Not One of Us
Date Published: 2021
Book Recommendations - About Book: The Teifi Valley’s coroner, Harry Probert-Lloyd, is struggling: with the blindness that drove him home from London, with the county magistrates and with an estate teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
He needs an escape, so when Dr Benton Reckitt is asked to give a second opinion on the apparently natural death of young Lizzie Rees, Harry willingly goes with him. But mistakes are made. Harry becomes embroiled in local rumours and in Esther Rees’s search for the truth behind her daughter’s sudden death.
What is Lizzie Rees’s father hiding? Was somebody else in the farmhouse on the night she died? And, most crucially for Harry, will he be able to uncover the mystery, and solve personal difficulties that threaten to tear him apart?
The Oxford Mystery Books
Title: A Bitter Remedy
Date Published 2023
Book Recommendations - About Book: Amongst the scholars, secrets and soporifics of Victorian Oxford, the truth
can be a bitter pill to swallow…
Jesus College, Oxford, 1881. An undergraduate is found dead at his lodgings and the medical examination reveals some shocking findings. When the young man’s guardian blames the college for his death and threatens a scandal, Basil Rice, a Jesus College fellow with a secret to hide, is forced to act and finds himself drawn into Sidney Parker’s sad life.
The mystery soon attracts the attention of Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan, a young Welsh polymath and one of the young women newly admitted to university lectures. But when neither the college principal nor the powerful ladies behind Oxford’s new female halls will allow her to become involved, Non’s fierce intelligence and determination to prove herself drive her on.
Both misfits at the university, Non and Basil form an unlikely partnership, and it soon falls to them to investigate the mysterious circumstances of Parker’s death. But between corporate malfeasance and snake-oil salesmen, they soon find the dreaming spires of Oxford are not quite what they seem…
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