Books editor
Fiona writes for the Daily Meridian. 4 articles.
★★★☆☆ A history of the country’s reservoirs is rich in detail about the villages beneath them, but never quite decides whether it is elegy or engineering
The former steelworker’s debut, written at 58 in a library on his days off, is the most talked-about Welsh novel in years; he is still not sure he is allowed to call himself a writer
★★★★☆ Ashcombe’s third novel moves between 1890s Northumberland and the present with a glazier’s eye for light and a thriller writer’s control of what is withheld
Booksellers Association figures show 52 openings against 29 closures, with the strongest growth in market towns and the first new shops in a decade in parts of the north-east