A cosy Christmas guide

A cosy Christmas guide

We’ve got a list of book recs and films that will be keeping us company during the long winter break! Ellie’s guide: At the top of my Christmas wishlist this year are Malala Yousafzai’s new memoir, Finding My Way – which promises...
Life is hard. Read romcoms.

Life is hard. Read romcoms.

It is the end of a long day. You have been working at a job you don’t like much but can’t leave because everything is dangerously expensive. You have trudged to the train station through the dark, through some puddles. At work in your breaks you checked the news and...
Chloe Michelle Howarth on writing

Chloe Michelle Howarth on writing

When I wrote my first novel, Sunburn, I was keen to write a very queer, very Irish story. I never imagined that people from countries all over the world would relate to it. The push and pull of both loving and rejecting your home town; living in a quiet, conservative...
Horror Must Reads

Horror Must Reads

This Halloween, VERVE authors are bringing you their scariest reads for the spooky season. Add these recs to your TBRs and prepare to be terrified. Zee Carlstrom Picks: TENDER IS THE FLESH by Agustina Bazterrica Let’s kick things off strong with an Argentinian novel...
‘Slashed Beauties’ Origins

‘Slashed Beauties’ Origins

I hung back as my husband waited for his turn to speak to the woman at the desk. Why? Because I knew he was going to ask politely to see a man’s severed head. We were in a museum in Pavia, Italy, where my husband was attending a medical conference. It’s partly because...