As early this month marked International Women’s Day, what better month than to celebrate all our phenomenal female writers.

Next up we have Miriam Hastings!!!!

In her work, Miriam Hastings is concerned with exploring the position and experience of the outsider. Her first novel, The Minotaur Hunt, was published by the Harvester Press and won the MIND book of the year award in 1988. A revised edition is now available in paperback and on Kindle, with a new afterword by the author.

“The Minotaur Hunt is beautifully written with an immediacy and urgency that has you turning the pages…” – Amazon Reviewer.

Her collection of short stories, Demon Lovers, was shortlisted for the Scott Award (Salt Publishing) in 2010. Three of these short stories are available on Kindle as The Doll and other stories: Strange tales.

Her historical novel, Walking Shadow, set at the time of the gunpowder plot, has been published on Kindle and also as a paperback from FeedARead. The story follows Edmund Shakespeare, a lead player of female roles on the London stage, who has been taken to the Tower, accused of treason. It’s January 1606 and London is a dangerous place; the gunpowder plot has just been foiled, spies and informers are everywhere, suspicion is rife in the streets and the terror of Catholic fanatics has gripped the people as well as the Government. It isn’t only players who perform a part, it’s only safe to go in disguise and many hide behind a mask. It’s a time when everything is uncertain and nothing’s what it seems. Like so many lurking in the streets of the city, Edmund adopts multiple disguises and beneath those disguises he hides many secrets. At all costs, he must keep these secrets from his enemies – but can he work out who they are? 

Reviewers have praised the novel for its depictions of history and hard hitting topics which are reflective of modern times, too. One such reviewer had this to say: It’s very clear form reading this intelligent and authentic historical novel that Miriam Hastings has a love of this period and has thoroughly researched it for Walking Shadow.

Hasting’s most recent novel, The Dowager’s Dream, is now available in paperback and as an e-book on Kindle.

The Dowager’s Dream is a surreal fantasy set on the north coast of Scotland at the time of the brutal clearances in the Scottish Highlands. The novel was inspired by the (largely imagined) lives of Miriam’s great great-grandmothers, Margaret MacKenzie and Christine Patterson, and also by an account written in 1809 by a minister’s daughter, describing a mermaid she had seen in Sandside Bay, Caithness. Although The Dowager’s Dream is set in the early years of the 19th Century, the themes of dispossession and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.

You can find all of Miriam’s novels by clicking here!

You can also keep up to date with all her news, blogs, articles, flash fiction and poetry by visiting her website here.