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ClareR (6037 KP) rated Sycorax in Books

Nov 16, 2025 (Updated Nov 16, 2025)  
Sycorax
Sycorax
Nydia Hetherington | 2025 | Fiction & Poetry, Paranormal, Science Fiction/Fantasy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I've seen The Tempest, and so I was interested to see an origin story for Sycorax - the most powerful witch of Algiers. Except she isn't the evil monster that Shakespeare has written about. In this story, she is a child, a girl and a young woman. A young woman who knows too much and is too different to the others in her village, protected by her parents up until the point where they are no longer able to protect her.
I love the way in this is written - it's lyrical with a nod to the style of Shakespeare, Nydia Hetherington gives a reason for Sycorax's differences: her physical difference is due to illness and injury, her witch qualities are due to the fact that she simply knows too much for a woman in a time where women shouldn't have known anything beyond childbirth, motherhood and housework.
And then there's the element of magic that runs throughout the novel - which is always a winner as far as I'm concerned. A really enjoyable novel.
  
40x40

ClareR (6037 KP) rated Call Me Mummy in Books

Feb 19, 2021  
Call Me Mummy
Call Me Mummy
Tina Baker | 2021 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
10
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Call Me Mummy had me on tenterhooks from the first page. I don’t think I’ve been this emotionally invested in a book for a while. I read it on The Pigeonhole app, so it was serialised over 10 days - and the wait for each stave seemed interminable! Thank goodness I read it during the half term holidays so that I could get stuck in every morning!
Mummy abducts five year old Tonya from a supermarket when her mother, Kim, is preoccupied on er phone. Kim, in Mummy’s eyes is not the epitome of outstanding motherhood. In fact to Mummy, she’s the exact opposite: poor, working class, eternally pregnant, children from different fathers - common. So in Mummy’s mind, she’s rescuing Tonya from a life of want and neglect.
Except there are two sides to this story. Whilst Kim may have had a terrible upbringing and a bad start in life, she loves her daughter fiercely and in the months that follow, the loss of her daughter nearly breaks her.
To be honest, Mummy is hardly a leading example of motherhood. She’s mentally unstable, has also had a devastating childhood and drinks to excess. Not the best idea when you hardly eat anything.
Interspersed with short chapters alternating between Mummy and Kim, are the glimpses into the murky world of social media, where the terrible judgements would be terrible for Kim to read - if she read them, that is. But Kim takes a rather defensive view of herself and her family. She won’t play nice to the media or her community. But we as the reader get to see what’s going on in Kim’s head, and frankly, it broke my heart. Prepare yourself for that, by the way, because this book will have you swinging manically between heartbreak (fro Kim and Tonya) and murderous rage (for Mummy).
I’m not going to say any more. You’ll just have to read this book. I loved it, and the ending was perfect - my favourite kind of ending, in fact!
Thanks to Pigeonhole for serialising this, and so much thanks to Tina Baker for joining in with her comments and interactions with us Pigeonholers in the margins! I think I’m safe in saying that we all had the best time reading this!
  
    Mad Women

    Mad Women

    Jane Maas

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    What was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the sixties and seventies, that Mad...