Bath Spa Books: Autumn

Bath Spa Books: Autumn

As the air gets chillier and the nights start to draw in, nothing beats cosying up with a hot drink and a good book.  

Our Bath Spa community is always adding great reads to the shelf, so put the kettle on, pull on your woolly jumper, and get comfy with these latest additions that have made us #BathSpaProud: 

The Last Life of Lori Mills – Max Boucherat, MA Writing for Young People 

Eleven-year-old Lori is home alone for the first time in her life, and she’s immediately done all the things she’s TOTALLY NOT allowed to do: 

1. Turned the heating up to the max. 
2. Built a GIANT blanket fort in the living room. 
3. Switched on Voxminer, aka the greatest game in the history 
of the universe. 

But quickly, Lori realises something is wrong. She can hear strange whispers coming from the screen – and soon, they’re in the house with her. 

The Yacht – Sarah Goodwin, MA Creative Writing 

New Year’s Eve, 2023. When Hannah and her friends rent a luxury yacht in an Italian marina, they party in style under the stars until they pass out. The next morning, they are horrified to find they have been cut adrift into the open ocean, with no sight of land and no fuel in the engine. And that’s when the first person goes missing… 

Corpo Seco – Nadia Maddy, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Health and Social Care 

Faron's destiny changed in a moment of heartbreaking betrayal. Accidentally killing his mother in an explosion of justified rage, the distraught son of a plantation owner and slave falls swiftly to the retribution of the other servants. But even though he's brutally punished and buried after an execution, he's shocked when he wakes transformed into a cursed being of myth. 

Flame Chasers – Jule Pike, MA Writing for Young People 

All Ember wants is to fly with the golden flamebirds who stop every year at Bright Beacon before heading west across the seas to their mysterious home. Their fiery arrival is also the signal for the waiting Flame Chasers in theharbour below to get ready to follow the birds, whose glowing tail feathers grant the finder a wish. But when Pa tells Ember he is chasing without her, she is devastated. Can she find a ship and captain to help her find her father, and the flamebirds secret home? 

Shadow Creatures – Chris Vick, MA Writing for Young People 

Mose and her daughter Agna are incomers in the village, treated with suspicion. But young Liva, left out of the secrets her sister Tove and brother Hakken share, idolises Agna and follows her everywhere. Unwittingly, they lead the German soldiers to a perfect island. Once a haven for picnics and story-telling under the midnight sun, it is transformed into a grim POW camp. This is an unlikely place to find buried treasure, but it's there. 
 
Friendships are made and broken, family trust is turned upside down and lives change forever as Tove and Liva recall their childhood experiences of living through WW2 in a story that moves from light to darkness to light again. 

Breaking the Dead Silence: Engaging with the Legacies of Empire and Slave-Ownership in Bath and Bristol’s Memoryscapes – Dr Richard White, Visiting Research Fellow  

The murder of George Floyd in 2020, the renewed international take up of the cry Black Lives Matter and the subsequent toppling of a statue commemorating slave-merchant-turned-philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol provoked urgent questions on memorialisation, white privilege, social justice and repair. 

Co-edited with Dr Christina Horvath at the University of Bath, this collection sets out to break the ‘dead silence’, by bringing together diverse perspectives from academics, artists, activists, heritage professionals and tourist guides. 

Do you have a story to tell? Our Creative Writing courses can help you find your voice and take your writing to the next level.