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Upcoming events at Book-ish

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An evening with...Sarah Hilary & Vaseem Khan

Join us to hear from these two amazing authors! Crime novel of the year winner Sarah Hilary brings us a brand new police series for fans of Broadchurch and Happy Valley. Sarah Hilary is the critically-acclaimed author of nine novels. Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India and his latest book Quantum of Menace is the must-read new James Bond spin-off mystery series. For fans of Anthony Horowitz’s James Bond series and Sophie Hannah’s Poirot Mysteries as well as those who love a classic British mystery We can’t wait to hear from both these award winning authors! About Sarah Hilary Sarah Hilary is the critically-acclaimed author of nine novels. Her debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year 2015. No Other Darkness, the second in her DI Marnie Rome series, was shortlisted for a Barry Award. Sarah is Programme Director for St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Weekend, and co-founder of Ledburied, a crime fiction festival in her home town. About The Drowning Place Every place has its ghosts. Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since. Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime.

Mon 13 Apr19:30Book-ish

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An evening with… Ben Rawlence in conversation with Tom Bullough

Join us on Tuesday 14th April at 7:30pm at Book-ish Loft, Crickhowell for an evening with acclaimed author Ben Rawlence, as he discusses his powerful new book Think Like a Forest: Letters to My Children from a Changing Planet and shares insights into his work exploring climate, community and the stories that connect us. About Think Like a Forest Think Like a Forest is a deeply moving and thought-provoking exploration of our relationship with the natural world, written as a series of letters to Ben’s children. With warmth and urgency, Rawlence draws on ecological science, human experience, and the wisdom of forests themselves to offer a new way of seeing our changing planet — and our place within it. About Ben Rawlence Ben Rawlence is an award-winning writer and human rights researcher whose previous books include Radio Congo and City of Thorns, which were praised for their compassion, insight and narrative power. His writing bridges rigorous research and heartfelt storytelling, inviting readers to rethink how we live with one another and with the Earth. About Tom Bullough Tom Bullough is a respected environmental communicator and host, known for engaging conversations that connect scientific thinking with real-world stories.

Tue 14 Apr19:30Book-ish

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An evening with...Alex Preston

Join us for an evening with award-winning author Alex Preston as he talks about his new novel A Stranger in Corfu, a gripping and stylish literary thriller set on a sun-soaked isle off Corfu. On the Greek island of Vidos the past lingers like salt in the air. The inhabitants – former members of MI6 – are sent here to be forgotten. Exiled. Either too damaged or too compromised to be allowed to live freely. For years, residents make the best of their fate – old enemies reconcile, long-lost friends swim together in the warm sea and estranged lovers share a bed once more. But secrets bind tightly. And when one of their own washes up dead, alliances fracture and a tide of suspicion begins to rise. A vivid reimagining of a real, hidden slice of the British Intelligence Service’s history, A Stranger in Corfu is an exquisitely tense and masterfully spun novel about shadowy morality, unravelled secrets and the futility of trying to outrun the past. Reviews Le Carré meets The Durrells – A Stranger is Corfu is a brilliantly atmospheric thriller. Suspenseful, vivid and impossible to put down – TOM HOLLAND Imagine the Slow Horses had parents who were also spies. Imagine those parents were on a small island, just off Corfu. Imagine that their chequered pasts might be catching up with them.

Sat 18 Apr19:30Book-ish

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Signing with Martyn Farr

Join us for a signing with Martyn Farr at our shop in is free but please book a ticket. There will be Beautiful Brecon Beacon books available to buy and also Martyn’s previous book Hidden Realms. About the author Martyn Farr was born in Crickhowell and is a leading exploratory caver and cave diver known for his record-breaking cave dives and the exploration of many miles of previously undiscovered underground passages. As an author and photographer, he has written many books on the subject of cave diving history and techniques and caving locations. About Beautiful Brecon Beacons Beautiful Brecon Beacons is a new book guaranteed to catch the eye and inspire a visit to South Wales. It has taken over five years to compile and anyone picking up this latest publication by Martyn Farr will feel compelled to browse the pages. This is a lavishly illustrated publication showcasing Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, and its environs, as never before. With 160 pages and some 320 full-colour, high-quality images it will quickly become evident that it caters for a wide spectrum of interests. This is a sumptuous presentation including wondrous scenery and hidden gems. It ranges across towns and countryside, key events and festivals, a variety of exciting outdoor activities, as well as fun days out for the whole family.

Wed 22 Apr16:00Book-ish

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The Bookish Quiz - April

Join us for our monthly general knowledge quiz with quizmaster Drew….. A round of drinks for the winning team and of course a prize for the losers to soften the blow. Always a fun evening in the Bookish Loft. £3 per person with teams up to 6 people. options to pre-order calzone served in the break.

Fri 24 Apr19:30Book-ish

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Signing with Jack Strange

Join us for a signing with Jack Strange at our shop in Abergavenny. Entry is free and there will be books available to buy. About the Boyfriend Academy Love is forbidden. Truth is dangerous. Survival is everything. ‘An absolute masterpiece’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged into the men society demands – strong, obedient, perfect. Graduate, and the world is yours: a home, a career, a wife. But fail… and you’re no longer useful to society. For Dylan Cecil it should be simple: keep his head down, survive graduation, and earn his place. But when his friend, Blake, disappears, Dylan can’t silence the questions gnawing at him, even as whispers of danger shadow the school’s gilded halls. As June’s trials close in – eight tests that will decide who is worthy of manhood – Dylan is haunted by Blake’s absence and drawn to Roman Edwards, a boy as magnetic as he is unknowable. In a world rebuilt on order and obedience, Dylan must decide: will he become the man the academy wants – or the man he really is? Praise for The Boyfriend Academy ‘A brilliant blend of dark academia, mystery, murder and forbidden love’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I adored this book so much.

Sat 25 Apr13:00Book-ish

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An evening of Celtic Magic with Brigid Ehrmantraut

Join us for a captivating introduction to Celtic magic with a talk from Brigid Ehrmantraut. Her book Celtic Magic reveals it magic’s integration into daily life from antiquity to the Middle Ages, inviting readers to explore its mysteries through rituals and practical charms. Druids and divination, curses and charms: the Celtic world was filled with magic and intrigue, but how did people practise magic and what did they use it for? Brigid Ehrmantraut takes us on a journey through the Celtic-speaking world to explore the different ways people interacted with magic. Some sought aid through deities and dedications, while others wanted to punish their enemies with spells and curse tablets. By the start of the medieval period, we see magic collide with popular religion, saints overtake the old gods, and witches, shapeshifting and spirit battles make their way into medieval literature. Ehrmantraut introduces us to the gods and practices that shaped the lives of the Celtic people in antiquity. She brings to life forgotten gods like Cernunnos and Esus, immortalized on the Pillar of the Boatmen, and explores the sanctuary of Sequana, goddess of healing at the Seine’s source. But magic wasn’t always benevolent; curses (defixiones) like those etched on the Larzac tablet expose a darker side to magic practitioners. While Classical accounts of magic offer tantalizing glimpses into lurid rituals and wild druids, their accounts blurring fact and fiction.

Mon 27 Apr19:30Book-ish

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An evening with... Jane Harper in conversation with Clare Mackintosh

Join us on Wednesday, April 28th at 7:30pm at The Parkway Hotel, Cwmbran for an evening with New York Times bestselling author Jane Harper! Jane will discuss her new novel, Last One Out. About  ‘Last One Out’ An unforgettable small-town mystery with huge emotional resonance from International No. 1 bestselling author Jane Harper, perfect for fans of Val McDermid, Chris Whitaker and Elly Griffiths. ‘Utterly brilliant . . . I could not put it down’ – Marian Keyes’A book to get lost in’ – Ann Cleeves’Heartbreaking and wonderful’ – Andrea Mara’I was glued to it for days’ – Jennie Godfrey’Jane Harper delivers unbearable tension’ – Val McDermid. And he had been alone. In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday. Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out. Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts. But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain.

Tue 28 Apr19:30Book-ish

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An evening with - Bryony Gordon

Join us for an evening with Sunday Times bestselling author, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon as she discusses her debut novel People Pleaser – a fiercely funny, instantly relatable, and utterly feel-good novel about the pressures women feel to please everyone at the expense of their own happiness. “You’re so desperate to make everybody else happy that you’ve forgotten what makes you happy. You’ve not just forgotten it, you’ve abandoned it, on a bonfire full of all your other hopes and dreams. A bonfire you’re too scared to light in case the neighbours report you to the council.” After a bitter career disappointment and subsequent raucous night out, chronic people pleaser Olivia Greenwood embarks on a wild and hilarious journey of inner awakening… Bryony is the author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers and Mad Woman, plus the Sunday Times No.1 bestsellers You Got This and Mad Girl, which were both nominated for British Book Awards. She is a passionate advocate for mental health in the media, which she explores through her weekly Daily Mail column and her podcast The Life of Bryony.

Fri 1 May19:30Book-ish

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Crime & Wine with...Matthew Hall

Greed, corruption and the race to save an ancient homeland When Jessie Cunningham, a high-flying Toronto lawyer with a round-the-clock schedule, is deserted and betrayed by her jealous partner, she suffers a nervous collapse. To recuperate, she takes up an isolated charity assignment, mapping trees in the forest wilderness of British Columbia. As her guide to the rugged terrain, she engages Todd Samson, a taciturn First Nations man from the Three Valleys reserve who is on the front line of the struggle to save his community from ruthless developers. Two people from vastly different worlds, the pair are slowly building a rapport when Todd is arrested and falsely accused of murder. Shocked by the police’s casual disregard for evidence, Jessie steps forward to assist a jaded local lawyer with Todd’s defence. But she is soon pitted against darker forces. Teaming up with the Chief of Three Valleys and a local shaman and woodcarver, she finds herself taking on greed and corruption in a race to save the reserve and its people from destruction and Todd from his own demons. About Matthew Hall Matthew Hall is a Bafta-winning screenwriter and novelist who lives on the England/Wales border. He trained and practised as a barrister before becoming a full-time writer.

Tue 12 May19:30Book-ish

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An Evening with ... Lucie McKnight Hardy

Join us in conversation with Lucie who grew up in West Wales and is a Welsh speaker and now lives in Hay-on-Wye. Her most recent book has been heralded as a ‘claustrophobic folk horror’ by Sunday Times Style About Lucie McKnight Hardy Lucie McKnight Hardy is the author of Water Shall Refuse Them, which was shortlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition and long listed for the Caledonia Novel Award and the short story collection, Dead Relatives. Both were picked as Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month. About Night Babies Is the house haunted? Or is it her? Things were looking up for Astrid Aspden and her partner, Kit, until their house flooded. With Astrid’s first solo art exhibition just weeks away, her paintings are ruined and excitement has turned to despair. She is thrown a lifeline when her best friend Flora invites her to stay in a run-down chapel she and her partner, Sim, are renovating in the Brecon Beacons. As Astrid and Kit settle into their new surroundings to salvage her work, they soon learn about the unsettling history of the chapel and what lies beneath the nearby reservoir. As the weeks go by, tensions simmer between Astrid and Flora as sour memories flare up from their teenage past and deep wounds are laid bare from an ill-fated school trip to Florence.

Thu 14 May19:30Book-ish

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Book & Film Club - I Swear

Each month we take a book that has an interesting film adaptation and spend the evening comparing the two. The ticket price includes a copy of the book (which can be collected from our Abergavenny bookshop once you’ve booked your place) and the film screening The bookI Swear by John Davidson is a sharp, emotionally grounded novel about friendship, loyalty, and the small moments that shape who we become. Set against the backdrop of working-class life, the book explores masculinity, moral compromise, and the unspoken bonds between men, balancing warmth and humour with an undercurrent of regret and reckoning. The filmDirected by Kirk Jones, the film adaptation of I Swear brings Davidson’s story to the screen with a focus on character and atmosphere. The film captures the intimacy of the friendships at its centre while expanding the emotional stakes through performance and visual storytelling. Thoughtful and quietly affecting, it reflects on how promises made in youth echo through adulthood, and how memory and responsibility intertwine over time.

Mon 18 May19:00Book-ish

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Signing with Kimberley Nixon

Join us for a signing with Kimberley Nixon at our shop in Abergavenny. Entry is free and there will be books available to buy. About the author Kimberley Nixon is a BAFTA-award-winning actress best known for her role as Josie in Channel 4’s Fresh Meat and for starring in much-loved teen cult hits Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. About She Seems Fine To Me Actress, check. Wife, check. Mother, check. In control of her own mind? Well… After a lifetime of getting everything ‘right’ – marrying her childhood sweetheart, starring in hits from Fresh Meat and Cranford to Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, having a much-longed-for baby – Kimberley Nixon’s brain broke. Or, more specifically, OCD won. ‘‘From the outside, I was coping. Inside, my brain was on fire.” She Seems Fine to Me is not a tidy recovery story. In this jaw-droppingly honest and darkly funny memoir, Kimberley shares what it’s like to become a mother while losing your sense of self, loving your child ferociously while being terrified of your own mind and the brutal gap between the rose-tinted version of motherhood we are sold and the more complicated reality. At once devastating and tender, Kim’s story will resonate with anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by motherhood, failed by the system or frightened by thoughts they were too ashamed to say out loud. It’s for anyone who has ever been told they looked fine when they were anything but.

Sat 23 May13:00Book-ish

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An evening with ... Rob Cowen

The North Road is the critically acclaimed new book from the author of Common Ground. For fans of W.G. Sebald, Robert Macfarlane, Iain Sinclair and Kathleen Jamie, The North Road sits at the intersection between On The Road and the film, Arcadia. About Rob Cowen Rob Cowen is an award-winning writer and author, hailed as one of the UK’s most original voices on nature, place and people. His first book, Skimming Stones, won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors. His second book, Common Ground was shortlisted for the Portico, Richard Jefferies Society and Wainwright Prizes and voted one of the nation’s favourite nature books of all time in a BBC poll. His follow-up, The Heeding, was the best-selling debut book of poetry in 2021. Rob has contributed to the New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent and written radio programmes for the BBC. He lives in North Yorkshire. About The North Road At the heart of this book is a highway. The A1; The Great North Road. A 400-mile multiplicity of ancient trackway, Roman road, pilgrim path, coach route and motorway that has run like a backbone through Britain for the last 2,000 years. In this genre-defying and profoundly personal book, Cowen follows this ghost road from beginning to end on a journey through history, place, people and time.

Tue 26 May19:30Book-ish

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Quiz - 29th May

Join us for our monthly general knowledge quiz with quizmaster Drew….. A round of drinks for the winning team and of course a prize for the losers to soften the blow. Always a fun evening in the Bookish Loft. £3 per person with teams up to 6 people. Options to pre-order calzone served in the break.

Fri 29 May19:30Book-ish

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An evening with ... Robin Ince

We are excited to welcome Robin Ince back to Book-ish with his brand new book! About Robin Ince For over thirty years, award-winning broadcaster and comedian Robin Ince has entertained thousands in person and on air. But underneath the surface, a whirlwind was at play – a struggle with sadness, concentration, self-doubt and near-constant anxiety. But then he discovered he had all the hallmarks of ADHD, and his stumbling blocks became stepping stones. About Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity What if being a bit weird is actually entirely normal? What if sharing our internal struggles wasn’t a sign of weakness, but of strength? In Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, Robin uses his own life to explore the neurodivergent experience and to ask what the point of ‘being normal’ really is. Packed with personal insights, intimate anecdotes and interviews with psychologists, neuroscientists and many neurodivergent people he has met along the way, this is a quirky and witty dive into the world of human behaviour. ‘This is a comforting hug of a book. Insightful, warm, funny and compassionate, it will make readers, whether neurotypical or neurodivergent, feel less alone’ – Laura Bates, bestselling author of Everyday Sexism‘Weirdness is inescapable, and no one does it better than Robin Ince. A superb book, celebrating the needed weirdness in us all’ – Chris Hadfield, astronaut and five-time bestselling author Event Format: Author talk followed by audience...

Mon 8 Jun19:30Book-ish

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An evening with ... Kim Willis

No Fair Maidens is part memoir, part exploration of the powerful, often forgotten, ancient goddesses and matriarchs of Britain. In this beautifully written and lyrical work, Kim Willis uses ancient stories and mythologies to question what it means to be a woman today… About Kim Willis In her late thirties, Kim Willis was told by a doctor that she’d never be able to conceive children, a conversation that made her question the very course of her life. Living in a warehouse in East London, her life a whirlwind of BBQs and baby showers, Kim felt herself drifting from the traditional path of marriage and motherhood, and yearning for a new set of stories to light her way.Kim Willis is a narrative strategist and journalist based between London and South Wales. She has designed storytelling strategies for Number 10 and the UN, written about wild places for the Guardian and was the founder of ‘Heroine’s Journey’ speaker series. About No Fair Maidens Returning to her native Wales, Kim Willis immersed herself in stories of ancient goddesses and matriarchs: shape-shifting enchantresses, scaly nymphs and goddesses who once commanded our lands.

Thu 18 Jun19:30Book-ish

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Signing with Terry Green

Join us for a signing with Terry Green at our shop in Abergavenny. Entry is free and there will be books available to buy.

Sat 20 Jun13:00Book-ish

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