New release

Sandwiched: Caring Up and Caring Down by Catherine Simpson

Pincered tight in the sandwich generation, Catherine Simpson finds herself juggling an ageing father determined to stay independent, a beloved daughter facing down a devastating mental health crisis, and the ongoing daily demands of work and family life.

With extraordinary candour, warmth and laugh-out-loud humour, this is a memoir about love when it can’t fix everything, about finding joy in charity shops, kittens, unlikely friendships and the small moments that keep us going. Honest but never bleak, it explores dementia, grief, autism and resilience with compassion, wit and an unflinching eye for life’s absurdities.

Extract from Sandwiched by Catherine Simpson

Come September, when we were children and all was safely gathered in in Winmarleigh – crops of potatoes, wheat, barley and maize – we thankful people did always come to St Luke’s Church to raise the song of harvest home at the annual Harvest Festival.

My dad grew grass for his dairy cows on our farm, rather than arable crops, and we couldn’t contribute that to the harvest festival, so my mother would fill a basket for each of us with fruit – apples, oranges and bananas – most of which had been ‘gathered in’ many thousands of miles away from Winmarleigh and bought at Booths supermarket in Garstang. I thought the baskets were beautiful because they were lined with ruby red and sapphire blue cellophane paper. For the rest of the year, they were stowed away on a high shelf in the far pantry among the never-opened jars of damsons from a generation ago. Sometimes I stood in the doorway just to admire their glowing jewel colours.

The church was decorated with sheafs of corn, and with apples and potatoes dotted around the base of the font. A solemn procession of school children would file up the aisle with baskets of produce fresh, dried and tinned, to leave at the altar before singing a rousing chorus of We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land. The food was then distributed to the old and needy of the village by my dad’s cousin Irene and other members of the church.

The first time I remember seeing a donated harvest basket of apples, oranges and bananas on Dad’s kitchen units was several years before he died, and I realised he was now officially one of the old and needy of the village. Of course, he was old – he must have been well into his eighties by then, but I just didn’t think of him as old, and I had never thought of him as needy.

‘You’ve got a harvest basket,’ I said, gazing at it.

‘I know,’ he replied.

We both contemplated it in silence.

It wasn’t that he was ungrateful, not at all, it was just that receiving a harvest basket was an acknowledgment that after a lifetime of being a giver, there comes a time when you become a taker, someone who needs caring for, someone needy – in need – and that was never how Dad saw himself. This was a pivotal moment in witnessing Dad ageing, or it should have been, but we pushed it to the backs of our minds. It was easy to do so because even when Dad reached his nineties, he was still working and living independently, with only the help of a local lady who cleaned for a couple of hours a week. He spent his days mucking out, lifting and carrying buckets and bales, and chatting with the clients at what used to be Tricia’s stables, in the old farm buildings, but were now run by Dad. Despite what was to come, Dad’s old age could never be defined by frailty and infirmity.

First rebranded Inklings published

We’re delighted that the first set of rebranded Inklings are publishing this month! New editions of Happy Death Club: Essays on Death, Grief & Bereavement Across Cultures by Naomi Westerman, All the Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths by Jean Menzies and On His Royal Badness: The Life and Legacy of Prince’s Fashion by Casci Ritchie all publish on the 3^rd September.

To keep up-to-date with Inklings specific news, sign up to the Inklings newsletter here. Read more about the Inklings series on our website.

Nature Chronicles Prize - Shortlist announcement

We delighted to share details of the Nature Chronicles Prize shortlist, which was announced today!

Angus Stokes, The Day Wings Filled the Sky

Elizabeth Bagby, Ghosts of Pyramiden

Isabelle Schmelzer, How to Catch a Porcupine

Kathryn Tann, Pele’s Hair

Leonard Yip, Tremors at the Edge of Vision

Liz Lee Reynolds, DWR

The winner will be announced on the 19^th November at a prize-giving ceremony in association with Kendal Mountain Book Festival, taking place at Cross Lane Gallery, Kendal. Ticket information for the awards ceremony can be found here.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and September is the turn of Topping & Company Edinburgh.

The first Topping & Company bookshop opened in 2002 in Ely. Followed by bookshops in Bath, St Andrews, Edinburgh and York.

The Edinburgh bookshop opened in 2019. “This storied building became our fourth bookshop led by Hugh, Cornelia, and Duncan Furness. Rolling ladders, hand-painted signs, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases continued the distinctive style of the other bookshops, whilst the 85,000 books lining the shelves whet our appetite for bookselling on a larger scale.

Behind all that we do is a deep and unrelenting love for books, and an unwavering belief in bookshops with individual booksellers at the helm rather than a distant head office. We remain family-run, independent booksellers, now in our second generation.”

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Dark Skies by Anna Levin. As the nights start to get longer, it’s the perfect time to look up into the night sky where we can find celestial light shows, whole ecosystems, and, perhaps, a new perspective.

Order Dark Skies from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - The Fool’s Leap by Victoria Bennett

This inspirational book invites artists, writers, and open-minded creatives to work with tarot as a framework for reflection and imaginative inquiry. Drawing on more than thirty years of lived creative practice, Bennett shows how tarot’s images, archetypes, and narratives can support creative momentum, deepen self-trust, and help navigate periods of creative block.

Blending personal insight with accessible exercises, The Fool’s Leap introduces a practice that integrates tailored spreads, creative prompts, and intuitive interpretation. Tarot opens better questions—about process, direction, and intention—rather than supplying fixed answers. The emphasis is on staying present with the work and building a sustainable creative rhythm.

The book includes beautiful, black and white tarot card illustrations by artist Adam Clarke.

The Fool’s Leap: Tarot as Creative Companion publishes on the 15^th October and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Catherine Simpson – Wednesday 2^nd, Topping Edinburgh, book launch event, 7pm

Catherine Simpson – Sunday 6^th, Getting to Grips with Trauma, Lanternhouse Theatre in Cumbernauld, from 10am

Sue Lawrence – Saturday 12^th, St Duthac Book and Arts Festival, in conversation with Catherine Williams, 2pm

Catherine Simpson – Tuesday 29^th, Wigtown Book Festival, 12pm

Rozie Kelly – Tuesday 29^th, Blackwell’s Manchester, with Marcia Hutchinson, 6.30pm

Rozie Kelly – Wednesday 30^th, Waterstones Harrogate, with Marcia Hutchinson, 7pm

Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month

We’re so delighted that Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues by Olga Wojtas is Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month for August!

It’s 1788 and Morningside librarian Shona McMonagle has travelled back in time and turned up in the Assembly Rooms. Crossing paths with Robert Burns, a teenage Walter Scott and a dangerous conspiracy that could alter the course of the Enlightenment. How will she resolve this muddle without bringing Enlightenment society crashing down?

Books published so far this year

With publishing slowing down during August (Edinburgh Festival is calling), we’re taking a look back at the books we have published so far this year. The perfect way to discover your Summer reading!

In Search of Gems: Finding Treasures in Wild Places by Kenneth Steven

Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why It Matters by Jim Crumley

The Loch of the Bees by Donald S Murray

Earthworks: Land and Nature in Uncertain Times by Karen Lloyd

Nature’s Almanac: A Gift for Every Day of the Year by Susie White

Swimming the Seasons: A Freshwater Almanac by Polly Atkin

Emily Brontë Reappraised: Expanded and updated edition by Claire O’Callaghan

Badger, Barn Owl, Hare and Swan by Jim Crumley

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues by Olga Wojtas

I’m Blue: You’re Yellow - extract from Earthworks by Karen Lloyd

While making wildflower meadows in inner cities feels like – and is – a radical act, the genesis of Everton Park’s meadows is very different: it began its life as an installation by visual artist Rebecca Chesney.

Rebecca and I had met earlier in the year in her studio in Preston when she’d shown me photographs of Everton meadows, which are a square of blue flowers and a square of yellow, titled, I’m Blue: You’re Yellow. The concept for the installation came about during a residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), where, during her time there, Chesney researched into the colour preferences of pollinators. From her observations, she concluded that pollinators gravitate more towards yellow and blue flowers, and from this she designed two square meadows divided by a narrow path. For reasons to do with Natural England funding for land management schemes at YSP, the meadows could not, after all, be planted, but in an act of timely serendipity, Liverpool offered an alternative.

Rebecca made contact with Richard and Polly, and together they convened a site meeting with the Friends of Everton Park and the city council. Like so many cash- strapped local authorities, the management of Liverpool’s parks had been delegated to newly formed Friends of Parks volunteers. To the local group, Rebecca’s meadows were a dream come true, and with subsequent support from the Liverpool Biennale and Arts Council England, her meadows were given the green light.

Continue reading on our blog.

National Year of Reading - Summer reading list

The National Year of Reading launched in January and is a campaign to address the steep decline in reading amongst children, young people and adults. A Department for Education initiative, in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, it  invites people to ‘Go All In’ – if you’re into it, read into it and rediscover the joy and power of reading.

With the last stretch of Summer before us and the longer evenings approaching, what better time to add to your reading lists and ‘Go All In’. To help you get started, we believe the compact reads in our In the Moment collection tick all the boxes for this campaign. They are immersive, enjoyable and perfect to lose yourself in.

Read our ‘read into it’ suggestions here.

Nature Chronicles Prize

The longlist for the Nature Chronicles Prize was announced last week and we’re excited to share the writers and essay titles with you.

Leonard Yip, Tremors at the Edge of Vision
Nicholas Moore, In Pursuit of the Gold Within
Susan Ratliff, Harmonic Restoration
Kate Forsyth, Blackness and Silence: The Double-Fated Yew Tree
Angus Stokes, The Day Wings Filled the Sky
Sarah Davies, Wild and Precious
Jemma Neville, The Otter
Isabelle Schmelzer, How to Catch a Porcupine
Sally McEnallay, Still Waters
Erin Despard, The Rhododendrons of Kilmahew-St. Peters
Kathryn Tann, Pele’s Hair: An Island Rising
Elizabeth Bagby, Ghosts of Pyramiden
Liz Lee Reynolds, Dwr

Find out more about the prize here.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop and August is the turn of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, with locations in both Tetbury and Nailsworth. We’re delighted to feature the bookshop in the same month they are featuring us as publisher of the month!

Their shop in Tetbury opened in 2008 and in Nailsworth several years later. The bookshop’s name is from a book called The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee.

“Buzbee got the image from a letter that Vincent van Gogh (who had worked as a bookseller) wrote to his brother. Van Gogh wanted to go back to Paris, and on a wet November evening, painted the yellow light of the bookshop pouring onto the street outside.

They are a carbon-neutral business, and have an ethical approach to everything they do. They also raise money to support a variety of causes. These range from books for children at the local foodbank, the local Women’s Refuge, and a variety of refugee charities. They also support local schools on a regular basis.”

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas. A timely chance to re-read, or to read for the first time, the first book in the Miss Blaine’s Prefect series.

Order Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - This Did Hurt by Sarah Close

This Did Hurt is a raw, unflinchingly honest memoir about one woman’s experience of navigating a healthcare system that too often fails to take women seriously — even at the moments they need it most.

This is for every woman who has felt unheard, brushed aside, or made to doubt her own body. For those whose concerns were minimised, whose pain was questioned, whose safety was at risk, or who were made to feel like an inconvenience. For those who carried on despite it, and for the people who stood beside them, wishing they could do more.

This Did Hurt: A mother’s story publishes on the 1^st October and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Rozie Kelly - Wednesday 12^th August, Carlton Club Manchester with Marcia Hutchison, 7pm

Olga Wojtas – Tuesday 18^th, Edinburgh International Book Festival, chaired by Alice Tarbuck, 1.30pm

Polly Atkin – Thursday 20^th, Edinburgh International Book Festival, with Gillian Best and chaired by Roxani Krystalli, 3.15pm

Kenneth Steven – Friday 28th, A Beer, A Bap, and A Boffin, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 1pm

We're delighted to announce that Women’s Prize shortlisted authors Rozie Kelly and Marcia Hutchinson (published by ) are going on a joint Northern book tour! Details below - tickets are available directly with each bookshop/ venue, with some tickets coming soon!

It’s 1788 and Morningside librarian Shona McMonagle has travelled back in time and turned up in the Assembly Rooms. She crosses paths with Robert Burns, a teenage Walter Scott and a dangerous conspiracy that could alter the course of the Enlightenment.

Read more

New release

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues by Olga Wojtas

“Warm and witty … a pure pleasure.” Harriet Tyce

In 1788 Edinburgh, the city is celebrating Robert Burns on his second visit to the capital. Burns would much rather be back in Ayrshire with his beloved Jean, but his publisher has him touring society – and his supposed muse, Nancy McLehose, is encouraging him to adopt a more marketable persona.

Morningside librarian Shona McMonagle finds herself caught up helping a teenager, Burns’s ardent admirer Walter Scott, while becoming part of a circle of clever, ambitious women. But when she is framed for the capital crime of housebreaking and condemned to the Tolbooth, she must rely on her ingenuity – and her allies – to clear her name. As events spiral, how will she resolve this muddle without bringing Enlightenment society crashing down?

Parcel of Rogues - guest blog by Olga Wojtas

Now that I’m the author of several novels and novellas, among them bestsellers and prize nominees, I feel I can safely disclose that a German publisher turned down my first book with the immortal words: “This is too zany for the Germans.”

I fear my writing may be too zany for a lot of people: my heroine is Shona Aurora McMonagle, a fifty-something librarian from Edinburgh’s Morningside Library, who is sent on time-travelling missions by Miss Marcia Blaine, the founder of the school she attended. Miss Blaine appears to be a woman in her prime, although she must be several hundred years old. Shona, who has had the finest education in the world at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, nonetheless never quite grasps what her mission is, and the alert reader is likely to have worked out what’s going on long before she does.

Little surprise that my Amazon reviews range from “deliciously ridiculous” all the way to “I wanted to slap her”.

Fortunately, no one has slapped me, and I’ve just completed the sixth book in the “Miss Blaine’s Prefect” series. It struck me that while we knew a lot about Shona, Miss Blaine was quite a shadowy character. What was her back story? Where and when did she come from? She’s a thoroughly Edinburgh lady, deeply cultured and intellectual. So I reckoned she had to be a product of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18^th century, when Scotland led the world with an extraordinary flowering of philosophical and scientific achievement.

Continue reading on our blog.

Discover more about the Miss Blaine’s Prefect series here.

National Marine Week

National Marine Week (hosted by The Wildlife Trusts) is taking place from the 25^th July to 9^th August, and this year’s theme is Incredible Journeys.

From wandering whales, to sea-spanning sharks, soaring seabirds and migrating molluscs - our precious seas are full of incredible journeys. This year we’re celebrating some of the most special journeys during National Marine Week.

As tide times vary around our coasts, National Marine Week is 15 days long to make sure everyone can take advantage of the best tides and experience marine life at Wildlife Trust events.

Find out more about the week and events taking place here.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and July is the turn of The Edinburgh Bookshop.

The current Edinburgh Bookshop opened in 2008 as a small community shop at Holy Corner, in the heart of Bruntsfield, before moving to 176 Bruntsfield Place in August 2024 – a stone’s throw from the birthplace of Muriel Spark.

Much roomier than the previous premises, the shop has “a dedicated children’s room, equipped with toys, comfy seats and an array of books for all ages; a bright, open main room with plenty of event space and soft benches, where people can relax; and, of course, more books! Since the move, we have not only put on hugely successful events (with many more to come), but also striven to upkeep The Edinburgh Bookshop’s identity as a community hub and a welcoming space, where people can enjoy themselves and the pleasure of reading.”

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet. A timely chance to re-read or to read for the first time, coinciding with this year’s Booker Prize longlist announcement on the 28^th July – ten years since His Bloody Project was longlisted and then shortlisted!

Order His Bloody Project from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Visible Mending by Kathryn DeZur

In Visible Mending, Kathryn DeZur turns her keen eye for the intimate and overlooked toward the humble act of repair. Beginning with a small pile of worn, beloved garments, DeZur unspools a layered meditation on mending—not to erase damage, but to honor it.

DeZur considers how acts of repair intersect with sustainability, status, fast fashion, and the politics of bodies—touching on fatphobia, ageism, and the pressures of self-presentation. Throughout, she asks what it might mean to live—and dress—in ways that acknowledge wear, time, and transformation.

Visible Mending: Remaking Ourselves publishes on the 22^nd October and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Olga Wojtas – Thursday 2^nd, The Edinburgh Bookshop in conversation with Elaine Thomson, 7pm SOLD OUT (waitlist available)

Rozie Kelly – Friday 3^rd, live author reading at Manchester Small Press Fair, See Saw, 86 Princess Street, 6pm

Team Saraband – Saturday 4^th, Manchester Small Press Fair, See Saw, 86 Princess Street, from 11am

Karen Lloyd – Saturday 4^th, Bradford Literature Festival, with Professor PB Anand, Sarah Levy and Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, 11am

Polly Atkin – Saturday 11^th, Bradford Literature Festival, 4.45pm

Olga Wojtas – Wednesday 15^th, Aboyne and Deeside Festival, Aboyne-Dinnet Church, 7pm

Rozie Kelly – Thursday 23^rd, Hebden Bridge Library, 7pm

Rozie Kelly – Friday 24^th, Toppings Edinburgh, chaired by Dan Richards, 7pm

Rozie Kelly – Thursday 30^th, The Grove Bookshop, Ilkley, 7pm

We’re excited to celebrate Independent Bookshop Week, taking place this year from the 13^th-20^th June. The week is a celebration of independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland. It aims to highlight the vital role independent bookshops play in their communities, and to encourage consumers to shop for their summer reads with their local independent.

This year we’re delighted to be twinning with Wild Fungarium! Opened in 2025 by Katrina and James, Wild Fungarium celebrates wildlife and the natural world and is based in the West End of Edinburgh. Wildlife and nature are subjects at the heart of our own publishing, so it feels like the perfect match!

The shop is filled with books covering every subject from the world’s tiniest micro-organisms to the planet’s largest mammals and everything in between. They cover themes of botany, birds, biology, biodiversity, insects, fungi, animal behaviour, nature writing, rewilding, ocean life and gardening for wildlife, alongside a selection of wildlife-related gifts and stationery.

There is also a dedicated children’s section, with books for every age, and the team are always delighted to help you find the perfect book for your young reader.

Events

To celebrate throughout the week, three Saraband authors will be speaking at events taking place at Wild Fungarium, in conversation with their expert booksellers. Click the author’s name below for further information and ticket details.

• Susie White, Gardening for Wildlife, Saturday 13^th June at 7pm

• Jim Crumley, Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why it Matters, Tuesday 16^th June at 7pm

• Christina Riley, Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves, Thursday 18^th June at 7pm

We hope to see you there!

Nature and wildlife inspired Spotify playlist

Immerse yourself in the sounds of the natural world with our nature and wildlife inspired Spotify playlist. Featuring calming birdsong, gentle woodland melodies, flowing water, atmospheric songs inspired by wildlife and wild places and music from some of Sir David Attenborough’s most beloved nature programmes! Whether you're enjoying a peaceful walk, relaxing at home, or simply seeking a moment of connection with the outdoors, tune in and listen to the sounds of nature.

Resources and how you can help nature thrive

The Wildlife Trusts - The Wildlife Trust protects, restores and stands up for nature. They are a movement of 47 independent charities working for wildlife.

Marine Conservation Society - The Marine Conservation Society helps to save and recover our oceans, with campaigns for positive change.

The Woodland Trust - The Woodland Trust is the UK's largest woodland conservation charity, working towards a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature.

World Wide Fund for Nature - One of the world’s largest conservations organisations, the WWF works to protect the planet in nearly 100 countries.

Fauna & Flora - Fauna & Flora works with local partners and communities in over 40 countries to protect nature, species and ecosystems.

Sir David Attenborough

We couldn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100^th year! Katrina and James’ shared love of David Attenborough, wildlife and the natural world brought them together and inspired them to create a space dedicated to wildlife that is accessible to all.

Browse through their collection of David Attenborough books here.

We hope you all have a happy Independent Bookshop Week!

New release

Emily Brontë Reappraised: Expanded and updated edition by Claire O’Callaghan

Claire O’Callaghan’s Emily Brontë Reappraised is the only new biography of Emily to be published during the last twenty years. This updated edition includes fresh analysis covering new scholarship and popular depictions and adaptations, including the 2026 film “Wuthering Heights”, tracing how modern interpretations continue to reinvent Brontë’s vision of love, freedom, and the wild northern landscape that shaped her imagination. Both accessible and deeply researched, this edition invites readers—new and returning alike— to rediscover Emily Brontë for our times.

Independent Bookshop Week

This year’s Independent Bookshop Week is taking place from the 13^th to the 20^th June. Here at Saraband it’s no secret that we love independent bookshops, and we’re delighted to announce that we’re celebrating the week by twinning with Wild Fungarium.

Wild Fungarium is a bookshop dedicated to wildlife and the natural world, subjects at the heart of our own publishing. Keep an eye out for an Independent Bookshop Week themed newsletter coming soon, with details of author events and much more. Read more about Wild Fungarium below.

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026

The winner’s announcement for the Women’s Prize for Fiction takes place on Thursday 11^th June. We’ve been overwhelmed by your messages of support and congratulations for Rozie Kelly and Kingfisher – thank you so much!

Rozie Kelly and Marcia Hutchinson (The Mercy Step) are the only British authors on this year’s shortlist. Both are debuts from the North of England and are published by small, independent, women-run publishing houses: Saraband and Cassava Republic.

We’re looking forward to celebrating these incredible achievements together at the winner’s announcement later this month. No matter the winner, this is already a proud moment for both authors and both publishers.

Audiobook Appreciation Month

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month, which celebrates the art and joy of listening to stories.

It’s been 13 years since our first audiobook production! During that time, we have recorded compelling dramas and thrillers, life stories that inspire, entertain and amuse and nature books that bring comfort and greater awareness about the world around us.

We’re thrilled by the success of our audiobook list. In 2023, The Reading Agency selected One Body to feature in the World Book Night Audiobook Selection. In 2023 and 2024 we were shortlisted by the Independent Publishers Awards judges for their Audio Award. And our award-winning audiobooks include His Bloody Project, The Bay, The Zen of Climbing and Cold Fish Soup.

New audiobooks include Solemates, which is available on Spotify and Audible. And of course we’re delighted that Kingfisher, for which the audiobook rights were sold to WF Howes, was recently The Guardian’s Audiobook of the Week.

Visit your local library (in person or online) to borrow audiobooks for free through BorrowBox and Libby.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop, and to tie in with Independent Bookshop Week, June is the turn of Wild Fungarium.

Wild Fungarium celebrates wildlife and the natural world and is based in the West End of Edinburgh.

They have filled the shop with books covering every subject from the world’s tiniest micro-organisms to the planet’s largest mammals and everything in between. They cover themes of botany, birds, biology, biodiversity, insects, fungi, animal behaviour, nature writing, rewilding, ocean life and gardening for wildlife.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Writing Landscape by Linda Cracknell. A timely read for National Writing Day, taking place on the 24^th June.

Reading this collection will take you to new places, open your eyes to the world, and suggest ways to take note and make notes as you go—to inspire your own attentive looking, journaling, and writing practice.

Order Writing Landscape from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Sandwiched by Catherine Simpson

Sandwiched is a candid memoir about being trapped in a high-pressure, intergenerational squeeze. It is a story of letting go of the superwoman myth, confronting the limits of control and responsibility, and trying to hold it all together while providing loving care.

Sandwiched: Caring Up and Caring Down publishes on the 10^th September and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Rozie Kelly – Wednesday 10^th, 2026 Women’s Prizes Shortlist Readings, in person at Bedford Square Gardens and online, 6pm

Olga Wojtas – Friday 12^th, Shetland Noir, Mareel Auditorium, with Daniel Aubrey and Morgan Cry (Gordon Brown), chaired by Stewart Bain, 1.30pm

Susie White - Saturday 13^th, Wild Fungarium, Edinburgh, 7pm

Jim Crumley - Tuesday 16^th, Wild Fungarium, Edinburgh, 7pm

Christina Riley - Thursday 18^th, Wild Fungarium, Edinburgh, 7pm

Karen Lloyd - Friday 19th, Wild Fungarium, Edinburgh, 7pm

New releases

Swimming the Seasons: A Freshwater Almanac by Polly Atkin

Follow poet and nature writer Polly Atkin as she swims through the turning year in the rivers, lakes and tarns of the English Lake District, in this lyrical ode to the uplifting power of water. This is a love story between a person and a place. It is a story of acceptance, persistence and finding joy in the everyday, as eight years of outdoor swimming through every season deepen Atkin’s knowledge and understanding of both the landscape she calls home and her disabled body.

Encounters in the Wild series by Jim Crumley

Badger, Barn Owl, Hare and Swan

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

We’re delighted that Rozie Kelly has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for her debut novel Kingfisher!

‘A taut, lyrical, and emotionally intense novel that explores love, trauma and all-consuming obsession... I found it a mesmerising read.’ Julia Gillard, 2026 Chair of Judges, Women’s Prize for Fiction

Kingfisher - guest blog post by Rozie Kelly

We spoke to Women’s Prize shortlisted, and winner of the 2024 NorthBound Book Award, Rozie Kelly about her debut novel Kingfisher.

How does it feel to have made it onto the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist?

I’d say that about sixty percent of the time it feels like I’ve made it up – it’s so totally unexpected and lovely, especially after being on the longlist which felt like the hugest honour, I never dreamed for a second it’d go any further. It’s like being asked to join a really cool club full of clever people – I can’t wait to meet all the other authors and read their books and future books. I’m delighted and surprised and grateful.

Continue reading on our blog.

Mental Health Awareness Week 2026

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is taking place from the 11^th- 17^th May and the 2026 theme is Action.

We’ve chosen Action as this year’s theme because, while awareness is vital, real change comes when we take action too. Together, we’ve come a long way on mental health, but we can’t risk going backwards. There’s still much we can do to prevent people becoming unwell in the first place. 

In the Moment series offer for Mental Health Awareness Week

To mark this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re running a special offer on our In the Moment series. Buy any three books from the series for £20.

In the Moment is a series of portable, accessible books from Saraband, exploring the role of both mind and body in movement, purpose, and reflection, finding ways of being fully present in our activities and environment. Take a look at the books on offer here.

Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast

In case you missed it! Catherine Simpson was on the latest episode of the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast with Giovanna Fletcher, discussing her book Hold Fast: Motherhood, my autistic daughter and me.

Hold Fast is an unforgettable story that shows what a gift it is to see someone not as the world tells them they should be, but as they are. Listen and watch the full podcast episode here.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and May is the turn of Booka Bookshop in Oswestry, Shropshire.

Based in the centre of Oswestry, ‘Booka provides a distinctive and memorable shopping experience – one that can’t be bought online! It combines its book offer with a range of high quality cards, stationery and gifts and a café selling coffee, teas and delicious home-made cakes.’

Booka’s non-fiction book of the month for May is Swimming the Seasons by Polly Atkin.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen The Garden Cure by Jan Cameron. A timely read for Mental Health Awareness Week, Jan Cameron shows us how tending green spaces can bring tremendous benefits to mental health. By exploring practices used in therapeutic and community garden settings we learn techniques that can be applied whatever your circumstances.

Order The Garden Cure from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Inklings

Originally conceived by our friends at 404 Ink, with covers designed by Luke Bird, we have begun publishing this series in North America. The first re-branded books will be available in the UK (and worldwide) from September.

On His Royal Badness: The Life and Legacy of Prince’s Fashion by Casci Ritchie, All the Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths by Jean Menzies and Happy Death Club: Death, Grief & Bereavement Across Cultures by Naomi Westerman, will all publish on the 3^rd September. More titles will follow in October and beyond! You can sign-up to our Inklings newsletter here.

Events

Linda Cracknell – Friday 8^th, Barnstaple Library, 2.30pm

Claire O’Callaghan – Saturday 9^th, Huddersfield Literature Festival, Emily Brontë Reappraised, with Michael Stewart, 4pm

Polly Atkin – Tuesday 12^th, The Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh, in conversation with Elspeth Wilson, 7pm

Linda Cracknell – Wednesday 13^th, Morrab library, Penzance, 2pm

Karen Lloyd – Sunday 17^th, Women in Nature: Karen Lloyd and We Are Nature Collective, Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen Art Gallery, 11.30am

Linda Cracknell and Karen Lloyd – Friday 29^th, Earthworks: Voices in the Landscape, with Polly Pullar, The Birks Cinema, Aberfeldy, 7pm

This month we’re sharing an exclusive extract from Swimming the Seasons: A Freshwater Almanac by award-winning nature writer and poet Polly Atkin.

Follow Polly Atkin as she swims through the turning year in the rivers, lakes and tarns of the English Lake District, in this lyrical ode to the uplifting power of water. This is a love story between a person and a place. It is a story of acceptance, persistence and finding joy in the everyday, as eight years of outdoor swimming through every season deepen Atkin’s knowledge and understanding of both the landscape she calls home and her disabled body.

Each month in the water reveals how a life lived with pain can be as rich, rewarding and full of delight as any other. Atkin swims for the sheer pleasure of it, showing how that pleasure may be found in every season, even by those who find the cold neither thrilling nor soothing. She reminds us of the quiet power of noticing the lives alongside ours — birds, plants and people. And through paying attention to herself and to the living world around her, she finds swimming becomes a transformative force, a kind of natural magic through which the extraordinary is revealed day after day, year after year.

Read more

New release

Earthworks: Land and Nature in Uncertain Times by Karen Lloyd, with a foreword by Mark Cocker, multi-award-winning author and naturalist

“If everyone thought as deeply as Karen Lloyd does about our complex relationship with nature, the world would be a far better place.” Lee Schofield, award-winning author of Wild Places

From the rainforests of Costa Rica to the Balkans and Scotland, Karen Lloyd explores the hidden life of habitats and species including sloths, the rockpool shrimp and the world’s only truly wild horse. She studies the biodiversity of urban wildflower meadows and the contested spaces of landscape recovery, including in the Lake District where she lives, assessing our human impact on the lives of creatures whose survival is deeply intertwined with our own.

Extract from Earthworks

From the chapter Sloth City

‘Sorry about the early start,’ Tamara said as I climbed into the car. ‘We have to work before the heat is too much for Keisha.’

It was 7.30 in the morning and for me, a Brit and a Northerner to boot, the heat and humidity were already insane. Keisha is a rescue staffie-cross and has a new career as a sloth detector dog, and here she was on Tamara’s knees, head out of the open car window, taking it all in on the regular commute to work.

I was in the small tourist town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast with Becky, or Dr Rebecca Cliffe, founder and CEO of The Sloth Conservation Foundation, and dog handler and sloth researcher Tamara Avila. I’d come across their work during a visit to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum, which included images and a short documentary by photographer Suzi Eszterhas that reveal exactly what happens when the world’s slowest moving mammal comes into contact with the urban environment, with roads, shops, hotels – and electricity cables.

Costa Rica is one of the best places in the world to see sloths: you’re almost guaranteed to see one, if not many, and this is good, we think, but it’s actually more of an indication of things being out of kilter. As pockets of forest are grubbed out to create land for development, the resulting habitat fragmentation forces sloths into increasingly urbanised environments. Take the matter of electricity powerlines, which in Costa Rica humans take for granted as part of the scenery, but sloths see as branches connecting one section of canopy to another. Every year in Costa Rica, over 3,000 sloths are electrocuted by badly insulated powerlines. The problem of illegally felling trees also creates fragmentation of the forest, meaning that sloths are now seen in all kinds of places they wouldn’t otherwise be: clinging to the steel scaffold of roadside food stalls, living in the stink of sewage works, or run over on roads or mauled and killed by domestic and feral dogs.

In the Natural History Museum, one of Eszterhas’s photographs shows the moment a thickset dog confronts a sloth as it clings to the base of a tree on an urban street corner. The sloth is highly vulnerable and the image is charged, driving the question ‘What happened next?’ Through this one inciting image I was drawn into the world of urban sloths, and how an animal of such obligate slowness might cope – or does not – as the urban environment expands through the expedient of tourism into the sloth’s once natural habitat in one of the most idealised natural landscapes on Earth.

*

Six to ten per cent of the world’s biodiversity resides in Costa Rica, in just 51,100 square kilometres of land, which is roughly the size of Wales, and the highest density of biodiversity in any country in the world. Many species are endemic, which means existing here and here alone. Historically, Costa Rica was almost entirely covered in indigenous rainforest, but in the 1960s government policy began to prioritise agricultural production such as coffee, pineapple, bananas, sugar and cocoa, paying farmers and landowners to clear forests and plant crops in their place. By the late 1980s, in less than three decades, 40 per cent of those indigenous forests had been cleared. Searching online, I found data maps revealing that by the early 1990s, as little as 25 per cent or even 21 per cent of the original forests remained intact. Thus, in an exceedingly short space of time, Costa Rica turned from being one of the most forested to one of the most heavily deforested nations on Earth. The impacts of all this wreaked environmental disaster on the country’s wildlife.

But change lay on the horizon. At the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, calls were made for the global cessation of deforestation, and in a rare move – unique in fact – despite commitments made and subsequently failed by other countries, Costa Rica’s then President Rafael Calderón committed to the reversal of deforestation, coining the term ‘ecosystem services’ to describe this transformative commitment, a term that soon became embedded in the everyday lexicon of environmental parlance across the world. Costa Rica’s green recovery is an international symbol of success, a potent symbol illustrating that nature recovery is not only possible, but achievable and in a remarkably short space of time. This green transition was funded initially through substantial tax rises on heavily polluting fuel, but in addition, through foreign investment that continues in the light of such highly regarded achievements (even if those same countries have yet to commit to green recoveries of their own).

It was perhaps no surprise that Costa Rica attracted international recognition. One after the other, awards piled in. In 2019, the country was presented with a Champion of the Earth award, the United Nation’s highest environmental honour for its role in the protection of nature, alongside its commitment to ambitious policies that combatted climate change. In 2021, it was awarded Prince William’s inaugural Earthshot Prize, set up to reward tenacious positive environmental change, and that offered financial remuneration to embed and continue the roll out of change.

Order your copy of Earthworks here.

International Dark Sky Week

This year’s International Dark Sky Week is taking place from the 13th-20th April and the theme for 2026 is Go Dark!

This year’s theme invites people to discover the night by making an active choice: to “go dark” and experience natural darkness firsthand. Whether it’s sitting quietly in a campground, walking a trail by moonlight, or turning off porch lights at home to see the stars just a little better, small actions can create meaningful moments and deepen our understanding of the night’s importance.

Read more and how you can get involved here.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and April is the turn of Wild About Story in Mawdesley, Lancashire.

Nestled in the peaceful countryside and based at Cedar Farm (upstairs on the mezzanine floor), Wild about Story has a range of beautiful and carefully curated books “which inspire and expand our awareness and fill us with wonder, books that make us laugh and that challenge the way we think. ​A centre piece of the bookshop is our lovingly renovated library trolley, now stocked with books which are ready to enchant and nourish and feed the imaginations of people, no matter what age.”

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Dark Skies by Anna Levin. A timely read for International Dark Sky Week later this month, Anna Levin looks at how we can learn from and nurture our relationship with the night sky even and especially in the context of our changing world. As you learn how to see and treasure the night sky, a sense of wonder about the universe will help you to understand more about our own pale blue dot.

Order Dark Skies from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues by Olga Wojtas

It’s 1788, and Shona has travelled back in time and turned up in the Assembly Rooms. Edinburgh society is lionising Burns on his second visit to the capital. He’d rather be in Ayrshire with Jean, but his publisher has made him go on tour, and his supposed muse, Nancy McLehose, has told him to adopt the persona of A Lad to boost reader interest.

Shona also finds herself helping Burns’s greatest fan, the teenage Walter Scott, and being welcomed into a group of female intellectuals. But when she is framed for the capital crime of housebreaking and condemned to the Tolbooth, who can help her? As the plot continues to thicken, what will happen to the Enlightenment and these resourceful women?

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues publishes on the 2nd July and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Karen Lloyd – Saturday 4th, Kendal Museum, 1pm

Rozie Kelly – Thursday 16th, House of Books and Friends, Manchester, in conversation with Sara Hunt, 6pm

Donald S Murray - Thursday 16th, The Gaelic Soul: an Evening with Donald S. Murray, Charbonnel Lounge, Toronto, 7pm

Susie White – Sunday 26th, Hexham Book Festival, 1.15pm

As some of you may have already seen (we have been rather excited about it!), Rozie Kelly has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for her debut novel Kingfisher. The judges said:

Rozie Kelly finds beauty in the messiness of being human in her meditation on grief, power, desire, our search for identity, how we love and the consequences when we fall short.

Included in this special Kingfisher themed newsletter, you’ll find an extract from the book, a blog post by Rozie on her top five women writers and a chance to win a copy of Kingfisher! We’re also offering an exclusive discount when you buy a copy from the Saraband website.

Extract

From chapter one

I can pinpoint, almost to the second, when I realised I wanted to f*ck her. It wasn’t the first time I saw her in the hallways of the university, nor was it when I first saw her read, and watched her face move from awkwardness to elation. It was a more happenstance occasion than that.

We’d tripped over one another while trying to buy coffee, me drifting, as usual, her clearly on the way to somewhere. But she stopped, as I did, awkwardly holding her coat and bag and some food shopping. It seemed rude not to invite her to sit with me, especially with the sun shining, as it was that moment. We perched on a recently vacated bench by the river. The ducks were fighting over crusts thrown by a small child and his mother. It was spring, so they were filled with its verve and aggression, trying to drown one another, mallards chasing females absentmindedly, flapping and splashing. An elderly cocker spaniel waded nearby, paying them no mind.

Ducks are evil, I said, as I rolled a cigarette.
The world must be very black and white, for you, she said.

It struck me as an odd thing to say, especially in England, where everything is grey. But it was then that I realised I wanted to be inside her. To push her down, to render her imperious intelligence stupid with the weight of my body, with my younger, harder form. I could tell, of course, that she wouldn’t accept being dominated, but it was a pleasant thought. She smelled like toast and marmalade. Like wet leather. Yes, I wanted to f*ck her. And I don’t want to f*ck women very often.

I was new to the area, then, although I feel old to it now, despite it being not much more than a year ago that this happened. My memory of that day is potent, but it’s blurred, like the feeling of emerging into a bright afternoon after unexpectedly quick pints. Vivid, but indistinct.

I can see the path underfoot as I walked away from her, having finished our coffees, with two Lotus biscuits in my pocket. She’d given me hers. I don’t like them, but I took it anyway, and allowed them to crumble in my pocket over the coming days as some kind of reminder. There was toadflax growing in the cracks of the walls, which I gazed at more than where I was going, as I am wont to do, when I am distracted.

Blog post - Rozie’s top five books by women writers

I have been given the impossible task! To narrow down a list of just five books by women that I can call favourites. To be honest I could go on and on but, luckily for me and anyone reading this, I am limited by a deadline and a word count. These are all books by authors whose work I return to again and again. Their genius makes me feel stupid, something I delight in. A feeling I love – to read something and be confronted by the fact I could never manage it myself. How delicious.

No1 – Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home

This short and dreamy novel is what, if held at gunpoint, I would choose as my ultimate favourite book. Levy’s work has influenced me more than any other writer, and this novel more so than any of hers. There is something so perfectly contained, so completely and utterly realised, about this small cast of characters and the window into the world they inhabit. The novel tells the story of the Jacobs family holiday in Nice. On the face of it this seems quite wholesome, but the arrival of a beautiful, chaotic and mentally unwell botanist explodes the lives of everyone involved. I describe it as an explosion, but to read it doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s a dream you might have on an afternoon in the shade after having too much sun, or the morning after drinking too much wine. The impeccable intricacies of the characters seep into you, and before you realise what’s happened you’ve been given this unsettling and anxiety-inducing hallucination on pain and loss and sadness and ego and betrayal.

Continue reading on our blog.

Win a copy of Kingfisher

To be in with a chance of *winning a copy of Kingfisher, you can either restack this post, or enter via our Instagram or Bluesky accounts.

*UK only. Closes midnight Sunday 29 March 2026. The winner will be notified on Monday 30 March.

Kingfisher discount code

To celebrate the Women’s Prize longlisting and Women’s History Month, we’re offering 15% off when you order a copy of Kingfisher from the Saraband website.

Add KINGFISHER15 in the coupon box at the checkout. Valid until 31 March 2026.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist will be announced on 22 April 2026 at 14:00 BST. For further information, visit the Prize website.

House of Books & Friends event

Join Rozie at House of Books & Friends in Manchester, on Thursday 16 April at 6pm, where she’ll be discussing Kingfisher. There will also be a Q&A and book signing. Rozie will be in conversation with Sara Hunt, publisher at Saraband.

New releases

The Loch of the Bees by Donald S Murray

From the author of the prizewinning As the Women Lay Dreaming.

This evocative and deeply original work reimagines the lives of Hebrideans across the centuries, sweeping from the eighth century to the present day. Through interlinked stories layered like blankets of peat, the novel reveals how fragments of earlier lives – a sword hidden by a Viking raider, a rosary left behind by a troubled priest – are preserved, buried, and later resurface.

As the novel unfolds, past loves, betrayals, struggles and losses echo through the lives of modern islanders, shaped by the shadows of the Clearances and devastating wars. Again and again, characters are drawn back to a beehive-shaped stone shelter on a tiny island at the edge of the Loch of the Bees, a place of refuge, memory and quiet renewal.

Nature’s Almanac: A Gift for Every Day of the Year by Susie White

This beautifully compact book invites you to pause and notice one remarkable phenomenon of the natural world each day, drawing inspiration from the Japanese tradition of microseasons—seventy-two poetic intervals that celebrate nature’s subtle shifts.

With her signature blend of lyrical observation, experience and insight, Susie guides readers through fleeting moments: the first snowdrop buds of spring, the song of larks on the wing, or the golden turning of leaves as the days shorten once more. Each entry is enriched by Susie’s deep expertise as a gardener and naturalist, offering practical wisdom and gentle encouragement to engage more closely with the world around us.

Awards news

We’re delighted to be able to share very exciting news about not one, but three prizes!

First up, a huge congratulations to Rozie Kelly who has been longlisted for the highly coveted, competitive Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, Kingfisher. This is the first time a Saraband novel has made the list, and we’re excited to be a part of the most influential prize for writing by women in the world!

Secondly, we’re delighted that Looking Down at the Stars, by Christina Riley, has been longlisted for the Highland Book Prize, which celebrates books created in or about the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Congratulations, Christina!

And lastly, we have been named a Small Press of the Year finalist in the 2026 British Book Awards. There’s so much talent to be found in the North, and we’re thrilled to be recognised for what a small Northern press can achieve, alongside our fellow finalists in this region. Congratulations to our friends in other regions, too. Read more about the awards here.

International Women’s Day

International Women's Day takes place on the 8th March and this year is celebrating 115 years. The 2026 theme is Give to Gain, encouraging a mindset of generosity and collaboration. Give To Gain emphasizes the power of reciprocity and support. When people, organizations, and communities give generously, opportunities and support for women increase. Giving is not a subtraction, it’s intentional multiplication. When women thrive, we all rise.

As a women-led team here at Saraband, we’re taking today to celebrate all the women that we’ve published over the last 32 years, and the women who have helped shape Saraband’s past, present and future. Special mentions this year go to Rozie Kelly and Christina Riley for their prize longlistings. And to Susie White, Karen Lloyd, Polly Atkin, Claire O’Callaghan and Olga Wojtas, all of whose books we are publishing this year.

Discover and read more about new, forthcoming and backlist books, here.

Women's History Month - guest blog post by Rozie Kelly

To celebrate Women’s History Month, Women’s Prize longlisted author Rozie Kelly, has chosen her top five books by women writers.

I have been given the impossible task! To narrow down a list of just five books by women that I can call favourites. To be honest I could go on and on but luckily for me and anyone reading this I am limited by a deadline and a wordcount. These are all books by authors whose work I return to again and again. Their genius makes me feel stupid, something I delight in. A feeling I love – to read something and be confronted by the fact I could never manage it myself. How delicious.

No1 – Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home

Continue reading on our blog.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and March is the turn of Far From The Madding Crowd in Linlithgow.

Spread over two floors of a lovely Georgian building, they stock every genre of book you’re looking for! Along with gifts, stationery, and more: just remember to give yourself enough time to explore! The bookshop also runs the yearly Further From Festival, which was founded in 2016 and is currently the only literary festival in West Lothian. We’re delighted that this year’s festival featured several of our authors: Jim Crumley, Olga Wojtas and Sue Lawrence.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Sea Marked: Throwing a Line to a Coastal Past by Linda Cracknell. A timely read for Women’s History Month, Linda retraces the footsteps and paths of her ancestors across marshes, clifftops and waves. She travels in a 121-year-old sailboat and helps to build a community rowing boat. Gradually, she understands that the women in this story were the linchpins of the coastal communities they lived in – and the undertow of her own identity. All the while, she is untangling her complex relationship with her mother.

Order Sea Marked from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Emily Brontë Reappraised by Claire O’Callaghan

Claire O’Callaghan’s Emily Brontë Reappraised – the only new biography of Emily to be published during the last twenty years – returns in this expanded edition, bringing new insight into how we read and remember one of literature’s most enigmatic writers.

Blending biography, feminist criticism and cultural history, O’Callaghan dismantles the myths that have long obscured Brontë’s life and art, revealing a bold, passionate and politically attuned writer whose work still resonates today.

This updated edition includes fresh analysis covering new scholarship and popular depictions and adaptations, including the 2026 film Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë Reappraised: Expanded and updated edition publishes on the 4th June and is available to pre-order now!

Events

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Wednesday 4th, Barnsley Book Festival, at Library @ the Lightbox, 6pm

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Thursday 5th, an evening with Graeme Macrae Burnet, Oats and Honey, Monton, 8pm. For more information about this event, please email sara@saraband.net

Sophie Franklin – Thursday 5th, Brontë Parsonage, Brontës and Violence, 2pm (in-person) and 7.30pm (online)

Karen Lloyd – Friday 13th, Earthworks book launch, Lancaster LitFest, in conversation with Lee Schofield, 7pm

Karen Lloyd – Sunday 22nd, The Rights of Nature, Lancaster LitFest, with Ian Convery, Juliet Rose and Lee Schofield, 7pm

Donald S Murray - Tuesday 24th, Waterstones Inverness, 3pm

New release

Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why It Matters by Jim Crumley

A lyrical and personal account of Jim Crumley’s lifelong quest to find harmony in nature as he celebrates our precious planet.

Renowned nature writer Jim Crumley draws on more than six decades of immersion in wild landscapes to explore the profound harmony at the heart of the natural world—and why it matters now more than ever.

With the lyrical clarity and passionate advocacy that have made him Scotland’s foremost nature commentator, Crumley weaves together close observation, personal encounters, and ecological insight to reveal nature as a vast, interconnected symphony. He argues that our survival depends on relearning how to listen to the land, to recognise our place within the great orchestration of life rather than apart from it. Through evocative prose built on his expertise and care, Crumley urges us to defend the beauty and balance of the living world, offering both a celebration and a clarion call.

Extract from Symphonic

Eighteen - Black Sunrise

A decade on from that Glen Affric day, there would arrive the morning of the black sunrise. Have you ever seen a black sunrise? If not, then you have never seen a cock capercaillie at the lek puffed up into a state of self-absorption, never heard the echo of piobaireachd infuse its slow strut the way the echo of a howling wolf invades the eeriness of Rannoch Moor at dusk. A black sunrise is what becomes of the bird’s tail when it stands erect and spreads into a wide, perfectly curved fan shape, the most preposterous of all its transformations from large grouse to the clan chief of all the pinewood floor.

I had relished a solitary midnight walk under a big moon, sublime antidote to a wretched day and a long cross-country drive from Skye through walls of rain and shuddering gales, roads flowing like rivers. But by the time I reached the force-field of the Cairngorms, I had driven beyond the reach of that weather front and exchanged it for a night of stars among snowy tops. Gleann Einich in Rothiemurchus beckoned. It was late April, snow down to 2,000 feet and the mountain world brighter lit and better defined than many a midwinter noon. Somewhere about 1.30 a.m. and more than a thousand feet below the snowline, I slid into my sleeping bag on a heathery couch among Scots pines to doze a couple of hours under the stars, intent on climbing through the sunrise. But somewhere about 3 a.m. I jerked awake at the sound of bathwater running down a plughole.

There was a minute or so of coming to, of trying to remember where I was, then trying to corral scattered and slippery fragments of consciousness and bring them to bear on the bathwater noises that seemed to be coming from somewhere up in the trees. Nothing was making much sense. Then the bathwater routine suddenly degenerated into something like a recording of a drumming woodpecker fiendishly slowed down and over-amplified. It crossed my mind that I was still asleep and floundering in the troubled backwaters of dream. Eventually, shards of recognition fell into place and I dug up from the depths of my back catalogue an explanation of what I was hearing – the pre-dawn vocabulary of a cock capercaillie, precursor of the early morning rituals of the lek.

Within an hour of more bathwatering and deformed woodpeckering, the bird’s silhouette gradually materialised in a nearby Scots pine. It does not matter how you meet a capercaillie in the wild: whether hunched comatose in a blizzard like a two-dimensional tea cosy, hurtling hugely into a flight of uncanny control through the thickest trees (often unleashing a second bird so that the uncanniness is performed in formation), or ungraciously rousing you in your temporary sleeping bag roost, it is never a mundane occasion. Anthropomorphism and I have long been uneasy bedfellows, but I find irresistible the old association between that slow strut of the piper in piobaireachd mode and the cock capercaillie’s first movements across the lek- king ground. But as the light and the mood around the lekking ground intensifies the comparative gravity of the prelude is compounded by elements of grand opera and high farce and the dignity of the piper is elsewhere.

Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why It Matters by Jim Crumley

East Anglian Book Awards

Congratulations to Laurence Mitchell, whose book Flint Country has won the General Non-Fiction Prize at the East Anglian Book Awards!

Beneath the bands of chalk that cover the UK lies flint, a mineral that has shaped our landscape, history and heritage. Flint Country tells the story of this abundant resource’s formation, what we can learn from its fossil records, and how it has been worked with and prized through millennia – from our prehistoric and ancient ancestors through to the present day.

Independent bookshop of the month

Each month we’re going to be highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and February is the turn of The Book Nook in Stirling.

The Book Nook opened in Autumn 2020 and is owned by Leanne and Jasmine. They sell new and second-hand books, and the café serves bagels, great coffee and delicious cakes. Their ‘mission is to provide an inclusive and cosy space that is welcoming and valuable to the Stirling community and its visitors.’ You can catch an event with Jim Crumley at the bookshop later this month!

North House Press

We’re excited to announce our involvement with new independent publisher North House Press, based in the Scottish Highlands and led by indie publishing veteran David Graham and distinguished literary author Kirsty Gunn. Their publishing will be a blend of fiction and non-fiction, introducing new voices and restoring overlooked writing from the past, whilst bringing into focus the unique characteristics and qualities of Scottish literature and culture.

North House Press is working with Saraband and their sales and distribution teams to bring their titles to market. You can follow them on Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook to keep up with the latest news!

Publishers Association launches the Publishing Inclusion Pledge

We are proud to be supporting the Publishing Inclusion Pledge, a new initiative which recognises and celebrates that diverse perspectives strengthen the UK’s publishing sector.

“Our commitment to inclusion and widening participation guides how we work, what we create, and the stories, information, knowledge and ideas we share, reflecting the diversity of the world we serve. Through continuous learning, accountability, and action – and with support from the Publishers Association – we will strive to make UK publishing a more inclusive space for our colleagues, our authors and other contributors, as well as our readers.”

Read more about the Publishing Inclusion Pledge here.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen The Blackbird Diaries: A year with wildlife by Karen Lloyd. With its enchanting song, striking orange bill and endearing willingness to share our living space, the blackbird is one of our best-loved birds. And, in common with all our garden wildlife, it plays a critical role in Britain’s fragile and precious biodiversity. With Spring on the way, this is a lovely timely read!

Order The Blackbird Diaries from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Swimming the Seasons by Polly Atkin

Discover the transformative power of year-round freshwater swimming by award-winning writer Polly Atkin.

Poet and nature writer Polly Atkin invites us to take a dip in the rivers, tarns and lakes where she swims year-round, finding inspiration and freedom every day. In this intimate, beautiful book, she shares her engagement with the crystal cold water and how this reconnects her body and mind with the natural world.

Whether bracing herself for icy streams or floating on a summer evening, Atkin’s reflections remind us to slow down, breathe, and enjoy being fully present. This is a book about resilience, mindfulness and the transformative embrace of wild water.

Swimming the Seasons: A Freshwater Almanac is publishing in May and is available to pre-order now!

Catch Polly on the latest series of BBCs Lost and Found in the Lakes, where freedivers and a scuba team join forces to try to find Polly’s lost camera at the bottom of Grasmere.

February events

Christina Riley – Wednesday 11th, St Andrews Botanic Garden, 12.30pm

Jim Crumley – Thursday 12th, book launch, The Book Nook, Stirling, 7pm

Jim Crumley – Thursday 19th, Topping St Andrews, 7.30pm

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Thursday 19th, Granite Noir 2026, Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 7pm

Ajay Close – Wednesday 25th, Barnsley Book Festival, Library @ the Lightbox, 6pm

Jim Crumley – Saturday 28th Further From Festival, St Peter’s Church, Linlithgow, 10am

Olga Wojtas – Saturday 28th Further From Festival, St Peter’s Church, Linlithgow, 12pm

Sue Lawrence – Saturday 28th Further From Festival, St Peter’s Church, Linlithgow, 3.30pm

Coming soon…

Graeme Macrae Burnet - Thursday 5th March, an evening with Graeme Macrae Burnet, Oats and Honey, Monton, 8pm. For more information about this event, please email sara@saraband.net

We’re starting the year off with an exclusive extract from The Loch of the Bees by multi-prize-winning author Donald S Murray.

This remarkable new work reimagines the lives of Hebrideans across the centuries, sweeping from the eighth century to the present day.

Interlinked stories unfold across generations, layered like blankets of peat, where fragments of earlier lives lie preserved and later resurface: a sword hidden by a Viking raider; a rosary left behind in a place of sanctuary by a troubled priest.

Past struggles, betrayals, loves and losses reverberate in the lives of modern islanders, woven and distilled by the legacies of the Clearances and devastating wars. Again and again, men and women return to the beehive-shaped stone shelter on a tiny island at the edge of the Loch of the Bees — a place of refuge, memory and renewal.

Murray’s compassionate gaze reminds us that time can be viewed as a circle, where the living are in constant conversation with those who came before.

Read more

New release

In Search of Gems: Finding Treasures in Wild Places by Kenneth Steven

Bring some sparkle, light and colour into January when you savour these accounts of evocative journeys through geology and landscape, seen through the eyes of one of Scotland’s most beloved poets and storytellers.

Blending lyrical prose with personal reflection, Kenneth Steven explores mountains, glens and shores in search of gemstones and crystals. He recounts his delight at discoveries of gold glinting in Highland burns, freshwater pearls embedded in mussel shells, and aquamarines, amethysts, garnets, amber and agates hidden in the wild places where others rarely roam.

Beguiled by their forms, colours, and sometimes glittering brilliance, he finds the thrill of unearthing riches more precious and delightful even than the gems themselves. Steven’s deep connection to the land shines through as he interprets the meaning and magic, inviting readers to see both the landscape and its hidden gems with fresh wonder.

Extract from In Search of Gems

Mica

Usually Loch Ness would be down below, at the bottom of steep, steep hillsides. But up there, perhaps a thousand feet and more above sea level, there’d be all manner of other lochans dotted about in the folds of the hills. I remember that Highland hill country being strangely pale compared to what I knew further south, and I’m not quite sure why. Almost a sandy shade, as though it was drier. A few trees and juniper bushes; bog myrtle and bog cotton. There was often a great deal of gorse too; I liked getting the sweet scent of it when I squeezed the leaves. That was true of the bog myrtle too, its aroma lovelier than the gorse. There might be a few very ancient pines, and up at that height they’d be sculpted by the wind. Often, there’d be a huddle of ancient pines by the lochs we visited. But generally the hills were bare; the ground around those crofts was stony and dry, and what I remember more than anything were the boulders. There always seemed to be such boulders up on this higher ground, strewn across it, almost as though once upon a time giants had fallen out and taken to hurling rocks at one another. These were the remnants of battle.

And they glittered, all of them, whether huge as a house or smaller than I was; they shone almost as if they contained small mirrors. And when outside, away from what I felt then was endless talk and tea, this is what excited me most. Mica. For that was what made up those tiny mirrors in the granite boulders, and some were very far from being tiny. This is where I wish I had greater knowledge of geology, but I’ve gone back to the Heddle book (The Mineralogy of Scotland) for assistance. The best I can do is offer as clear a picture as I can. To Heddle, mica was so common in Highland Scotland he didn’t suggest particular sites for finding it; he did that instead for all the real treasure-hunters’ gems – agate and tourmaline, carnelian and onyx, jasper and amethyst, all those aquamarines and topazes. But he must have encountered so much mica in his days of leaping over moors and hills there was no particular need to mention it.

It was certainly far more common here above Loch Ness than back in Perthshire. Again, that’s down to geology, and again, I don’t know why it should have been so prevalent here. I certainly remember catching odd glints of mica when I was up in the hill country above Aberfeldy, but it was glints rather than full pieces. Here in my mother’s home country, it was shining at me from everywhere and it would have taken several lifetimes to find every bit I caught sight of in just the locations we visited. But just as common as the glints of it were the larger mirrors in those rocks the giants might have warred with. Those pieces could have been as much as half the size of my small hand back then; they were real chunks of the stuff, silvery and opaque. They had a kind of glassy sheen to the surface. What was wonderful to me was that often enough, they could be chipped and tugged from the granite rocks that held them.

Introducing… independent bookshop of the month

As most of you will know by now, here at Saraband we love independent bookshops and celebrate them whenever we get the chance! Each month, we’re going to be highlighting an independent bookshop stocking the books we’re publishing that particular month, and we’re starting with Daunt Books in Marylebone.

Built in 1910, Daunt Books is one of the oldest custom-built bookshops in the UK and is famous for its beautiful interior, including oak galleries, skylights and a stunning stained glass window. Scroll through their online bookshop here.

National Year of Reading 2026

The National Year of Reading 2026 is a campaign to address the steep decline in reading amongst children, young people and adults. It is a Department for Education initiative, in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, inviting people to ‘Go All In’ – if you’re into it, read into it and rediscover the joy and power of reading.

Read more about the campaign, and how you can get involved, here.

We believe the compact reads in our ‘In the Moment’ collection tick all the boxes for this campaign. They are immersive, enjoyable and perfect to lose yourself in when you find some time for yourself. They make thoughtful gifts, too, at any time of the year.

Nature Chronicles Prize

A final call to submit to this year’s Nature Chronicles Prize! This global, biennial competition for essay-length non-fiction on an aspect of nature writing will close to entries on the 31st January 2026.

The winner will receive £10,000 and five runners up will win £1,000 each. The winning and shortlisted entries will be included in The Nature Chronicles Prize: 3 anthology, to be published by Saraband.

Read more about the prize, and the entry terms and conditions, here.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau by double Booker Prize-listed Graeme Macrae Burnet. What better time than the start of the year to read the first book in a trilogy – especially one with such stellar reviews and loved by so many readers!

Manfred Baumann is a loner. Socially awkward and ill at ease, he spends his evenings surreptitiously observing Adèle Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at his local bistro. But one day, she vanishes into thin air. When Detective Georges Gorski begins investigating her disappearance, Manfred’s repressed world is shaken to its core and he is forced to confront the dark secrets of his past.

Order The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau from our website and receive 10% off! Just add code SPOTLIGHT10 at the checkout.

Coming soon - Earthworks by Karen Lloyd

This collection is a rallying call – a celebration of renewal and resilience – for all who care about Earth’s future.

From the rainforests of Costa Rica to the Balkans and Scotland, Karen Lloyd explores the hidden life of habitats and species including sloths, the rockpool shrimp and the world’s only truly wild horse. She studies the biodiversity of urban wildflower meadows and the contested spaces of landscape recovery, including in the Lake District where she lives, assessing our human impact on the lives of creatures whose survival is deeply intertwined with our own.

Earthworks: Land and Nature in Uncertain Times is publishing in April and available to pre-order now!

Events

Linda Cracknell – Wednesday 21st, The Wee Bookshop, Dollar, 7.30pm

Books we published in 2025

This is our chance to celebrate all the books we have released this year, and their brilliant authors.

We’ve travelled from a Cairngorms glen to a Baltic island, sailed to Cornwall and visited small-town France – plus all the destinations in the travel-writing anthology There She Goes! We discovered life beneath the waves and spent time in wild places, promoting wildlife along the way. In January we welcomed multi-award-winning author A.L. Kennedy, publishing the critically acclaimed Alive in the Merciful Country. Not forgetting our debut novelist: in April, Kingfisher, by NorthBound Book Award winner Rozie Kelly, was a Marie Claire editor’s pick in their spring reading list and one of Northern Life magazine’s best Northern books. Rozie also took part in a sold-out Casual Readers Bookclub event. Hat tip to writer and poet Derek Owusu for recommending her novel!

Our summer author events included one in beautiful Glen Clova and another on a 120-year-old wooden ship. In October we celebrated ten years of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s best-selling and award-winning novel His Bloody Project, publishing an anniversary edition; the book was also discussed on the BBC World Book Club.

As winter approached, Christina Riley’s beautiful Looking Down at the Stars was chosen as a Caught by the River book of the month.

We’ve had a busy and productive year in so many ways. We were named a Small Press of the Year finalist in the British Books Awards for the third year running, and we’ve begun new collaborations with two fellow independent presses and a nature writing prize. We’re also continuing to grow in the US and Canada, working with our team in Minneapolis.

A huge thank you to our authors and readers for such an unforgettable and buzzy year! We couldn’t have done any of it without you.

Guess the Saraband cover

Guess the 15 Saraband covers correctly and be in with a chance of winning one of the featured books!

(Pssst… If you find yourself in need of some help, visit our website!)

Please send your answers via this form by midnight on Sunday 14th December.

Good luck!

*Please note this competition is for UK entrants only.

The Nature Chronicles Prize 2025/26

There’s still plenty of time to enter the £10k Nature Chronicles Prize: entries close on 31st January 2026.

This is a global, biennial competition for essay-length non-fiction on an aspect of nature writing. Originating in the Lake District, Nature Chronicles is proudly regional, yet international in scope. The winner will receive £10,000 and five runners up will win £1,000 each. The winning and shortlisted entries will be included in The Nature Chronicles Prize: 3 anthology, to be published by Saraband.

Read more about the prize, and how you can enter, here.

Christmas shop

Our Christmas shop is open, stocking a range of gifts and bundles, perfect for bookworms – and easy to wrap for you!

In need of some stocking filler inspiration? Visit our blog for ideas!

Please order by Monday 15th December to ensure delivery for Christmas. Any orders after this date may be late to arrive, and/or will be fulfilled in January 2026. Thank you.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Mistletoe Winter, a perfect read for the season with bite-sized essays from internationally renowned wildlife conservationist Roy Dennis, who is especially known for his work with birds. This volume provides inspiration and ideas for everyone who cares about our planet and its species, and it’s the ideal read for every nature lover.

Coming soon - Nature’s Almanac by Susie White

Discover the extraordinary in every day with Nature’s Almanac, by renowned wildlife and biodiversity gardener, and author of Second Nature, Susie White.

This beautifully compact book invites you to pause and notice one remarkable phenomenon of the natural world each day, drawing inspiration from the Japanese tradition of microseasons.

Susie guides readers through fleeting moments: the first snowdrop buds of spring, the song of larks on the wing, or the golden turning of leaves as the days shorten once more. Each entry is enriched by Susie’s deep expertise as a gardener and naturalist, offering practical wisdom and gentle encouragement to engage more closely with the world around us.

Nature’s Almanac: A Gift for Every Day of the Year is publishing in March and available to pre-order now!

Events

Linda Cracknell - Tuesday 2nd, Pages of Hackney bookshop, in conversation with Rosie Hilton, 7pm

Christina Riley – Sunday 14th, Kilmartin Museum, Argyll, in conversation with Tamsin Cunningham, 1pm

Thank you

A huge thank you to all our readers for your support this year. Wishing you a peaceful Winter Solstice and the very best for 2026.

We have a range of gifts and bundles available this year, perfect for bookworms – and your easiest wrapping of the season! Read on to discover what’s on offer.

In the Moment bundle

In the Moment is a collection of beautiful, inspirational compact books, each of which is an ideal stocking filler or Secret Santa gift! Discover The Zen of the Wild, spend time Interpreting Dreams, reflect on Atoms of Delight, or head outside to marvel at Dark Skies or to create pollinator-friendly conditions in your garden with The Gardener and the Moth.

Buy any three In the Moment books for £20.

Paperback fiction bundle

There’s something for everyone in the paperback fiction bundle, from prize-winning literature to debut talent. Immerse yourself in historical fiction, contemporary novels, romance, literary fiction, thrillers and cosy crime. Find yourself in a remote and rugged corner of the Scottish Highlands, on a cold Baltic shore, or perhaps you’ll be in Yorkshire or Lancashire, or whisked away to colourful Mexico or small-town France.

Buy any two paperback fiction books for £20.

Paperback non-fiction bundle

The paperback non-fiction bundle is the perfect solution to finding a gift for someone you find a little more challenging to buy for! There’s something for film buffs, history fans, gardeners, or anyone inspired by outstanding personal stories.

Buy two of our selected paperback non-fiction books for £25.

Premium Substack subscription

Treat a loved one, a friend (or even yourself) to Saraband’s premium Substack membership, a gift for Christmas and beyond! You’ll receive a free published paperback of your choice each quarter and, in addition to the free monthly newsletter, you’ll also receive an exclusive quarterly newsletter with subscriber-only content, behind-the-scenes insights, member discounts and freebies throughout the year.

The premium Substack membership is fantastic value at £39.99 annually.

Stocking filler ideas

From whisky aficionados to lovers of the sea; from caring about the planet to the simple joy of picking up pebbles on the beach – there’s a book for everyone in our stocking filler ideas guide! Buy Looking Down at the Stars and receive a set of four exclusive postcards, with images taken under the sea by the author.

The Gorski Trilogy

From double-Booker Prize listed author Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Gorski Trilogy follows Chief Inspector Georges Gorski around the streets and bars of Saint-Louis, investigating disappearances, accidents, mysterious strangers and dead bodies. But these are so much more than detective novels. They’re also brilliant character studies, full of dark humour, and all wrapped up in a clever and intriguing backstory drawn from the author’s unique metafictional playbook. No wonder they’ve had rave reviews!

Read more about each book: The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, The Accident on the A35 and A Case of Matricide.

Buy the complete trilogy in paperback for £30.

Order and delivery information

Please order by Monday 15th December to ensure delivery for Christmas. Any orders after this date will be fulfilled in January 2026. Thank you.

Note: as with all our offers, postage & packing is added to orders below £25. All offers are while stocks last.

New releases

Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves by Christina Riley

“A book of wonder and delight.” Malachy Tallack

In 2022, Christina Riley became an ‘underwater artist in residence’ at the Argyll Coast Hope Spot – a place of incredible natural beauty in Scotland also crucial for the health of the world’s oceans. She spent days submerged alongside marine life, before resurfacing to reflect, recreate and recount what she had seen – and the feelings of love, hope and responsibility her experience had evoked in her.

The resulting essays collected in this stunning volume, alongside some of her illustrations, swim through the kaleidoscope of marine life she found there, from starfish to seagrass to the water itself.

Riley’s lyrical prose is the perfect guide to this unfamiliar underwater world, brimming with surprises, sunlight and sea stars.

The Gardener and the Moth: Planting for Moths and Butterflies by Susie White

Lifelong gardener and author Susie White has spent over a decade constructing a lively, abundant wildlife haven at her Northumberland home. Her garden is a sanctuary for all creatures and values life, variety and growth, of which both moths and butterflies are a crucial part. In this compact volume, she teaches us how to find plants that attract moths and butterflies, how to support these insects through their larval stages, and how to identify and study them.

As with so many insects, numbers of moths and butterflies have declined dramatically in recent years. Actively creating a beautiful garden that welcomes all forms of life is a simple but joyful step to take towards protecting them.

Listen to Susie talk about moths found in her garden, in conversation with Anne Leuchars.

Looking Down at the Stars - guest blog post by Christina Riley

When I applied to be an underwater artist-in-residence at the Argyll Hope Spot my plan wasn’t to write, but to look. I’d been taking underwater photographs with various waterproof 35mm cameras, either disposable or effectively so, given how quickly they broke. The call for artists to spend time within the marine habitats of Scotland’s west coast felt like something I had personally commissioned and it was the most passionately and effortlessly truthfully I’ve ever filled out an application. As I wrote in Looking Down at the Stars, if I wasn’t right for this, I wouldn’t know what I would be right for.

Photography has always been the core of my practice and it’s what I wanted to develop further during the residency. Writing came later, and for a while felt like a separate entity. It wasn’t until the residency that the connection between the two became apparent.

Continue reading Christina’s guest post on our blog.

Book Week Scotland

Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading, run by the Scottish Book Trust. It is taking place this year from the 17–23 November and the theme for 2025 is Friendship.

Read more about Book Week Scotland and events that are taking place across all regions, here.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen While the Earth Holds its Breath: Embracing the winter season, a perfect read to help you get through the Winter months. Author Helen Moat, who you may have heard on the Radio 4 Today programme after the clocks went back last week, will guide you in finding a positivity that does not ignore the darkness, but finds something to love there.

Coming soon - The Loch of the Bees by Donald S Murray

From the author of the prizewinning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes an evocative and highly original fictional rendering of a Hebridean island across the centuries.

This is a novel that mirrors the shifting rhythms of wind and tide. The struggles and joys of past lives are refracted in the heartaches and hopes of modern-day islanders. As in his award-winning previous novels, the ordinary is suffused with quiet wonder; every place and gesture carries memories and meaning.

Murray’s compassionate gaze reminds us that time can be viewed as a circle, where the living are in constant conversation with those who came before.

Read more about The Loch of the Bees here.

Events

Rozie Kelly – Saturday 8th, Todmorden Book Festival, with Kerry Andrew and Bec Evans, 2pm

Catherine Simpson – Saturday 8th, Aye Write, with with Nina Mega and Gabriella Bennett, 2.30pm

Christina Riley – Thursday 13th, The Portobello Bookshop, book launch in conversation with Roxani Krystalli, 7pm

Donald S Murray - Thursday 13th, Monton Salon evening, Oats and Honey, Monton, 7:45pm. For more information about this event, please email sara@saraband.net

Donald S Murray – Friday 14th, Aye Write, The Salt and the Flame event, 6pm

Caroline Young – Saturday 15th, Aye Write, with Zoe Venditozzi, 4.15pm

Rozie Kelly - Saturday 15th, The National Creative Writing Industry Day, Manchester, 9.30am

AL Kennedy – Sunday 16th, Aye Write, with Natasha Brown and Gabriella Bennett, 4.15pm

Esa Aldegheri – Sunday 16th, Aye Write, There She Goes event with Linda Cracknell and Claire Askew, 7.45pm

Linda Cracknell - Tuesday 18th, Banchory Library with Yeadon’s of Banchory Booksellers, 6.30pm

Team Saraband - Friday 21st, Scottish Christmas Book Fair, Edinburgh, with guests Caroline Young and Christina Riley, from 10am (guests 3:30pm to 4pm)

Team Saraband - Saturday 22nd, Scottish Christmas Book Fair, Edinburgh, with guests Graeme Macrae Burnet, Catherine Simpson and Olga Wojtas, from 10am (guests 10:30am and 12pm)

Team Saraband – Saturday 22nd, Manchester Winter Book Fair, House of Books & Friends, 11am

New release

His Bloody Project: Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet - 10th Anniversary Edition

“A brilliantly written story of rural hardship, fractured community and eventual, inescapable bloodshed.” Ian Rankin, The Guardian

“A real box of tricks… a truly ingenious thriller.” Jake Kerridge

“One of the most convincing and engrossing novels” The Scotsman

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s propulsive, Booker-shortlisted contemporary classic is reissued to mark its tenth anniversary.

The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish Highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but it falls to the country’s finest legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to commit such merciless acts of violence.

Was he mad? Only the persuasive powers of his advocate stand between Macrae and the gallows. Graeme Macrae Burnet tells an irresistible and original story about the provisional nature of truth, even when the facts seem clear.

Find out why so many readers around the world love this book so much. It’s beloved by book clubs, older readers, young adults, thriller readers, history buffs, and pretty much everyone who enjoys a page-turning and thought-provoking read.

Visit our blog for 10 reasons to add it to your tbr!

Why I shared my stories of toxic relationships in Single and Psycho – guest blog post by Caroline Young

When I started plotting out my idea for Single and Psycho, I was going through a tough time. Over the last few years, I’d had several miscarriages and a failed round of IVF. I was angry, and I blamed myself for making bad decisions, and staying too long in a bad relationship because I was too afraid to walk away. I had let time slip away when I so wanted to have children.

I found solace in horror movies, because they delve into the dark side of human nature, they explore the grotesque, and like Rosemary’s Baby, they reflect the real discomfort and anxiety that many pregnant women experience. Feeling a bit psycho, and feeling the rage building up in me, I began to think about all those unhinged women of popular culture. I embraced the unstable single women like Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, Fleabag and even Villanelle in Killing Eve, because maybe it was easier not to care.

Read more on our blog.

Bookshop Day

Here at Saraband we love Bookshop Day, which is taking place this year on Saturday 11th October and celebrates all bookshops on our high streets and in local communities.

Sara is hoping to visit local bookshop, The House of Books & Friends, and Rebecca will be calling into Wild About Story. Our authors will be out and about signing books and meeting readers and booksellers. Join in the fun and visit your own local bookshop!

You can read more about Bookshop Day and find your local bookshop here.

National Poetry Day

National Poetry Day is taking place on the 2nd October and we have two poetry books we’d like to tell you more about - Green Verse and The Man Who Talks to Birds.

Green Verse: An anthology of poems for our planet edited by Rosie Storey Hilton is arranged by season – and is full of surprises – giving a glimpse of the vast breadth of writing on the natural world. The poems included see well-loved poets celebrated alongside new and emerging writers, whose voices echo the urgency of the climate crisis we now face.

The Man Who Talks To Birds by Donald S Murray is a short collection of poems written during lockdown at his Shetland home, exploring the changing realities of the island and how he, in turn, has been changed. With beautiful imagery and lyricism, The Man Who Talks to Birds taps into a deep connection with nature, and its ability to ground us.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, a perfect read for Halloween. This varied and accessible collection leans into the fun of horror while taking its cultural impact and reciprocal relationship to the LGBTQ+ community seriously.

Download the official It Came From the Closet film watchlist.

Coming soon - Symphonic by Jim Crumley

From 'predominant nature writer' Jim Crumley comes his latest book, Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why It Matters.

Renowned nature writer Jim Crumley draws on more than six decades of immersion in wild landscapes to explore the profound harmony at the heart of the natural world and why it matters now more than ever.

Symphonic is a vital testament from a writer whose life’s work is a passionate defence and celebration of nature’s enduring—and endangered—harmony.

Events

Esa Aldegheri – Friday 3rd, Wigtown Book Festival, with Marjorie Lotfi, Margaret Elphinstone and Sarah Thomas, 3pm

Caroline Young – Thursday 2nd, Golden Hare Books, Edinburgh, in conversation with Catherine Simpson, 6.30pm

Catherine Simpson – Sunday 5th, Portobello Book Festival, Hold Fast event, 10.30am

Esa Aldegheri – Sunday 5th, Portobello Book Festival, chair for Ways to See the World panel, 12pm

Rozie Kelly - Wednesday 8th, University of York Open Lectures, Kingfisher: publishing a debut novel, 6pm

Rozie Kelly – Thursday 9th, with Chloe de Lullington (debuts night), Next Chapter Books, Leeds, 6pm

Anna Levin – Friday 10th, Aberfoyle Book Festival, Nature Writing and the Natural World panel, 7pm

Linda Cracknell – Saturday 11th, Aberfoyle Book Festival, in conversation with Tom Bowser, 11am

Linda Cracknell – Saturday 11th, Aberfoyle Book Festival, writing workshop, 2pm

Jim Crumley – Sunday 12th, Aberfoyle Book Festival, in conversation with Wendy Faulkner, 3pm

Sue Lawrence - Thursday 30th, Port Bannatyne Community Hub, Bute, Whispers in the Glen event, 7pm

New releases

Sea Marked: Throwing a Line to a Coastal Past by Linda Cracknell

“Cracknell wonderfully explores the strange durability of the paths that we make.” Robert Macfarlane

Linda Cracknell’s quest to learn more about her seafaring family history brings her to a blustery harbour. As she throws a line to pull in a boat, she is struck by the parallel with her mission to reel the past closer to the present, to find her place in a family tree full of mariners whose lives were defined by the ebb and flow of tides.

Exploring coastlines from Scotland to Cornwall by boat and foot, she retraces the footsteps and paths of her ancestors across marshes, clifftops and waves. She travels in a 121-year-old sailboat and helps to build a community rowing boat. Gradually, she understands that the women in this story were the linchpins of the coastal communities they lived in – and the undertow of her own identity.

Single and Psycho: How pop culture created the unstable single woman by Caroline Young

A lively, sharp and thought-provoking exploration of the enduring stereotype of the dangerous single woman in popular culture.

Through her analysis of books, films, and TV shows, she reveals how these narratives reflect deeper anxieties about women’s independence. Engaging, witty, fun and feminist, Single and Psycho is a timely critique of how society views single women – and a celebration of their complexity and resilience.

The Adventure of Writing Sea Marked - guest blog post by Linda Cracknell

Walking and motion have always been essential to my writing, but I can still enjoy a good walk without writing. Between 2015 and 2023 I met up with my friend Kate to walk the South West Coast Path for one week each year, sweating up four ‘Everests’ over 630 miles. Although I now live in Perthshire, Scotland, some of the places we passed were familiar from my life in Devon between 1978 and 1990 and from coastal jaunts from my grandmother’s Exeter home through my childhood. It was also pleasing that we would pass my mother’s home – our long-standing family stomping ground – in the far west of Cornwall.

I was determined, however, that this new walking venture was a holiday – it was not going to become a writing project.

Continue reading on our blog.

The North Indie Read

Calling subscribers based in Lancashire! We’ve teamed up with the brilliant Lancashire Libraries as part of The North Indie Read, giving you the opportunity to win prizes from independent publishers, whilst supporting your local library.

Find out more, and how to participate here.

Saraband at Edinburgh International Book Festival

We’ve had a brilliant week at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, watching plenty of Saraband author events and catching up with friends. Thanks to all those who attended! Here are just a few snaps…

Olga Wojtas and Sara Hunt; A.L. Kennedy and Olga Wojtas; Olga Wojtas on stage discussing her latest Miss Blaine’s Prefect adventure; Sue Lawrence talking about her real life inspired Whispers in the Glen; Graeme Macrae Burnet taking part in the Scottish Writing Showcase; A.L. Kennedy reading from Alive in the Merciful Country; Esa Aldegheri, Alice Tarbuck, Amanda Thomson and Linda Cracknell on the There She Goes panel; Marion Sinclair's farewell with her colleagues and the incoming Publishing Scotland CEO, Sheila Pinder and Catherine Simpson celebrating the publication of Hold Fast.

Photos credits to Olga Wojtas and Sara Hunt.

Saraband Spotlight

Each month, Saraband Spotlight spotlights a previously published book, whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, something timely or a book that we think you might have missed. This month we’ve chosen Cold Fish Soup by Adam Farrer. An affectionate look at a place and its inhabitants, and the ways in which they can shape and influence someone. Adam’s account explores what it means to love and be shaped by a place that is under threat, and the hope – and hilarity – that can be found in community.

Coming soon - In Search of Gems by Kenneth Steven

From the author of the beautiful (if we do say so ourselves!) Atoms of Delight, comes an evocative journey through geology and landscape, seen through the eyes of one of Scotland’s most beloved poets and storytellers.

Blending lyrical prose with personal reflection, Kenneth Steven explores mountains, glens and shores in search of gemstones and crystals. He recounts his delight at discoveries of gold glinting in Highland burns, freshwater pearls embedded in mussel shells, and aquamarines, amethysts, garnets, amber and agates hidden in the wild places where others rarely roam.

Read more about In Search of Gems: Exploring for Scotland's Treasures here.

Events

Linda Cracknell – Thursday 4th, Watermill Bookshop, Aberfeldy, 7.30pm

Linda Cracknell – Monday 8th, book launch, Bessie Ellen, Seaport Marina, Inverness, 6pm

Linda Cracknell - Tuesday 9th, book signing, Ullapool Bookshop, 2pm

Donald S Murray – Thursday 11th, Duthac Book and Arts Festival, 7.30pm

Mike Billett – Friday 12th, New Bookshop, Cockermouth, Cumbria, 7pm

Kenneth Steven – Friday 12th, Duthac Book and Arts Festival, 3pm

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Saturday 13th, Bloody Scotland, 10am

Ajay Close – Saturday 13th, Duthac Book and Arts Festival, 11am

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Saturday 13th, Duthac Book and Arts Festival, 7.30pm

Linda Cracknell – Wednesday 17th, Golden Hare Bookshop, Edinburgh, 6.30pm

Catherine Simpson – Thursday 18th, book launch, Waterstones Edinburgh, 7pm

Caroline Young – Thursday 18th, book launch, Lighthouse Bookshop, Edinburgh, 7pm

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Friday 26th, Wigtown Book Festival, 7.30pm

Saraband – Saturday 27th, Northern Publishers Fair, Manchester Central Library, 11am

Rozie Kelly - Brontë Women’s Writing Festival, West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, 12pm

Graeme Macrae Burnet – Saturday 27th, Wigtown Book Festival, 4.30pm

Olga Wojtas – Monday 29th, Wigtown Book Festival, 4.30pm

Ajay Close – Monday 29th, Wigtown Book Festival, 6pm