Perhaps you've been reading from day one. Perhaps you've only just discovered one of my chapters. The Reading Room is where you dip in, dip out or binge read, fall into a story and stay a while. Either way, I am happy to have you here.

‘Suck-in.’ 'I. Am. Sucking. In'. Lemara seethes back at Julia. 'Em, have you put on weight because these clasps ain't budging?' The commotion brings Joshua, in all but his tux and cufflinks, to the ensuite door. The said cufflinks he’s fixing, he stops, to look at his sister and his girlfriend. ‘Everything ok in here?’ Lemara grits teeth. Doing anything else, breathing, blinking, would cause clasps to detonate. Like shrapnel. So she nods. Joshua satisfied, nods back. Retreats

'I don’t understand what this child of mine eats. How is there no corn meal, no sweetened condensed milk, nutmeg and things like that.' I woke to the most clawing hunger pain, not helped by the scent of nostalgia coming from the kitchen. The smell of Christmas morning's saltfish. Somewhere downstairs, the original 'Mary's Boy Child is in competition with my Aunty Shelly's singing and the pattering of pots and pans. I eased myself upright. David wasn’t in the bed. Instead a g

'Liv, I know this is possibly the last thing on your mind right now but my mother...' Ordinarily, I would move from fully reading a paper to half reading it when my husband started that sentence. But when things to do with his mother got dropped into the mix, he got my undivided attention. Aunt Shelly sat perpendicular to me, siding with Judge Judy on the TV. But the full side-on look I gave David, paused both David, Aunty Shelly and Judge Judy. He started again. 'Possibly th

Jess thought she was just James’ plus-one for the evening. But between Charlotte’s barbs, Fredric’s teasing and a walk back to the hotel that turns into a champagne and wine fuelled frolic, it is beginning to look like something out of a movie scene. Sweet Mustard Night is messy, witty and thoroughly irresistible.