New Publication! A Friendship of Thistles

-

I'm clearly not focused on self-promotion, as my newest book was published in May and I haven't posted here about it yet! I am also offering a giveaway here. Or get your paperback/ebook copy here for the US, and here for the UK.


About the book

‘Where have you been?’ Hector asked. He unfisted a crumpled sheet of test results.
Heather said, ‘You’re all bones.’
‘Fran, threw me out.’
‘And?’ she asked.

Two women. Multiple secrets. The question is: how to forgive your best friend with a heart full of thistles?

Read with a friend! A Friendship of Thistles is THE book to read with your closest friend, or group of friends. With great discussion points for a book group. With that said, it’s also for you if you’ve never had a friend nor sustained a thirty-year friendship, or fallen out with a friend and are wondering how to repair the damage done.

The story of Heather and Fran brings Edinburgh alive, during lockdown from 2019 to 2020. From a working-class perspective, Parfitt has created a memorable in-depth look at friendship and community. A Friendship of Thistles is also the story of a nation divided. Through the lives of Fran and Heather, Parfitt gives her readers the story of a country and its people undergoing stupendous change to remind us of the importance of community.

Recommendation


‘When Hector talks about politics, or when you talk about Covid-19: it is part of people’s lives, and the sense of community grows gradually. We feel that the virus impacts their lives, and we are emotionally concerned and connected with them. Stocking food and cans, the pressure to obtain a grant from the government, the craving for a bit of warmth, it’s very real.’
—Jeanne ML

Other books

Temptation & Mozzarella -- a comedy set in a wacky Scottish village
Shattered Roses -- a beauty & the beast retelling
Seascape -- short stories inspired by storytelling research
Wee stories -- short stories for kids, including How the Herring Became a Kipper as featured on Radio 4!
 It's hard for independant publishers, readers use reviews to select new books and it's hard to compete with the publishing houses, and authors who can afford to pay for reviews (yes, fraud is now a big thing with reviews). So I would appreciate any genuine readers who are able to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or any of the alternatives. It's the readers who should matter.

Location: Lanark ML11, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Storytelling Workshops

-
This month I have been arranging to go into three schools to start collecting data from focus groups. I have three student storytellers on board for three schools. And I will be conducting the research in the summer term (April – May). Paul Whitehouse (English PhD student) and I have also finalised details of our summer school programme for widening participation and are applying for funding. This will include 40 students from local schools over two days. The theme is transformations as it give the students a chance to rewrite and subvert fairy tales and put together a performance of their ideas for the final day. The two days will include storytelling, performance storytelling and writing workshops, A campus tour and hopefully a bit of shadow puppet making as well.
Read more

Posters to plasticine (Nov 2014)

-
Image
1 st November – poster presentation   Presented a poster of my research at the Herbert Art Gallery as part of the ESRC F estival of Social Sciences. The exhibition aimed to improve public access to innovative research in Warwick and Coventry and was attended by the general public, academics, small business owners, and policymakers.  See a pdf of my poster here . 6 th November – The Spirit of ‘45 Attended a Q&A to hear director Ken Loach talk about his new documentary ‘ The Spirit of 1945 ’. A film showing broken promises made by the Labour party, nationalisation , and the subsequent dismantling of the welfare state over time. During discussions at the end a member of the audience said, what can we do to protect our NHS? Our welfare? Loach suggested that socialist parties group together and co-ordinate, with voters supporting one another, negotiating and backing the Green Party (as an example), and in that way trying to ensure welfare is no...
Read more

Elephant Tusks

-
Image
  Inspired from the above photograph Rainbow by Helen Patience from the Hold Still digital exhibition , I wrote the following poem. The Duchess of Cambridge and the National Portrait Gallery revealed the winners in 2020, which featured 100 portraits from 31,598 submissions during the project’s six-week entry period. The images aimed to record of our shared and individual experiences during lockdown, and have been exbitited in Times Square in London.    Elephant tusks   Grey, What of grey? A rainbow window. A little girl. Upturning the gravel of her mind. A lassie’s sunflowered Macintosh waves from a distance bending towards her ma’s swan neck cocooned in a tartan scarf. Amber, turquiose and carmene are easy to understand, but what about grey? A woven net of grey weaves infront of her eyes, danglng on a stick. Pencil on paper the girl composes a list: scaffolding, TV aerials, paperclips, guitar strings, tins of peaches, hubs on the car,...
Read more