Shaun van Rensburg

The London Book Fair. Always wonderful to be amongst my people💖

Always a game of spot the bookshop, wherever you may go ♥️

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“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” — Rudyard Kipling

“Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.” — Nancy Mitford, ‘The Pursuit of Love’

I’m a simple person. I see a carriage, I stop to look🤷‍♂️

Have you ever been so excited for a book that you kept pushing off reading it, scared that you might pick it up, read fifty pages, and realise that, yes, it’s not all that good?
Trust me when I say, this book lived up to my inner hype… and so much more. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, but I’m not biased when I shout this at you: GO AND READ IT!

Having read a few fantasy novels by South African authors in my past, I thought I knew what to expect with this one. Turns out, I really didn’t. It was fresh and vibrant and the writing was undeniably GORGEOUS.

Much like her protagonist in ‘The Company of Birds’, Nerine Dorman has a gift for words. She strings them together, sentence by sentence, in a way that’s wonderfully smooth. ‘The Company of Birds’ is so well written, on a technical level, that once you’re in the groove, you can easily stay there until the end.

And don’t get me started on the setting! If you know me, you know I love domestic-feeling stories, and Nerine Dorman has somehow taken a secondary-world fantasy novel (with sprinkles of inspiration from Dragon Age and South Africa) and made it feel intimate and real—magic, politics, and the like—without ever making it feel monotonous. The characters were flawed and relatable and Liese ten Haven, especially, was so well constructed that she’s the type of protagonist you can follow through several books without getting tired of her.

If you haven’t read it, you need to do yourself a favour. If I could give it more than 5 stars on Goodreads, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Nothing like a pink drink and slice of cake to raise the spirits!💖 Thanks for coming and making the second viewing of ‘Wicked: For Good’ so special 💖💚🤗 I vote we should do it every Friday!😆

Sometimes it really is the journey that’s most fun, especially if you get to stop and see things you never expected along the way ❤︎

Glad I brought a handkerchief, because I was SOBBING. Honestly, I can say I have been changed for good 💖💚