-
£10.00
DATE: Tuesday 2nd June
TIME: 17:30 – 18:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
Damien is a former West Country solicitor who draws on extensive experience of criminal law and his time in the Crown Prosecution Service. “Blue Blood” is the fifteenth novel in the popular D I Nick Dixon crime series. When a body is found floating in Bridgewater Bay, and when the victim is identified as a serving police officer, executed at point blank range with a 3D printed gun, the Assistant Chief Constable is soon knocking on D I Dixon’s door, his wedding night or not. Damien adds another gripping crime with unforeseen twists and turns to the already full C V of D I Dixon.
Sponsored By: Battens Solicitors
-
£15.00
DATE: Sunday 7th June
TIME: 17:30 – 18:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
In “Diva” Daisy Goodwin tells the fictionalised story of Maria Callas, from her earliest years in the USA, through her musical education in Nazi-occupied Greece, her early career to the height of her operatic fame as “La Divina” (the Divine One). Her doomed love affair with Aristotle Onassis is the major part of the book. “Diva” ends and tackles her decline, and death in Paris, in 1977.
Sponsored by: Ilminster Home Hardware
-
£15.00
DATE: Monday 8th June
TIME: 10:30 – 11:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
In “The Players”, Minette Walters paints a picture of the huge unrest which ensues when the Duke of Monmouth arrives in Dorset in 1685 to incite rebellion against his uncle, King James II. The rebels will be charged with treason and those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered. Compelling and powerful, “The Players” is a story of guile, deceit and compassion during the dark days of The Bloody Assizes. Secrets are kept and surprising friendships formed in a dangerous gamble to thwart a brutal king’s thirst for vengeance.
-
£15.00
DATE: Sunday 7th June
TIME: 15:30 – 16:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
Sarah Dunant’s most recent novel, published in 2025, is “The Marchesa”, a study of the great female Renaissance patron, Isabella d’Este. It is Renaissance history at its most vivid, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and art, images of both the people and the time. Sarah’s books are international best-sellers and have been translated into thirty languages.
-
£10.00
DATE: Monday 8th June
TIME: 15:30 -16:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
“The Horseman” is Tim’s ninth novel and is the first in a trilogy. It follows the story of Leo, a 12 year old boy who lives on the Devon-Somerset border and whose family is employed on the local country estate. The novel describes in luminous detail the everyday life of the working-class men and women who support the estate – farm labourers, kitchen maids, stable boys. The detail is carefully and tenderly recounted, but there is a brutal sting in the tail.
Sponsored by: Symonds & Sampson Ilminster
-
£10.00
DATE: Tuesday 9th June
TIME: 10:30 – 11:45
LOCATION: Monks Yard
DESCRIPTION
Tom has written 15 books, most recently “Villager” and the topic of today’s talk, “Everything Will Swallow You”. The story is about the unusual friendship of Eric and Carl, the power of landscape and dusty objects, used records, and the joy of accepting the unusual. Stephen Fry called Cox “one of the most enchanting (not to say hilarious) writers around”. Tom Cox lives in Devon with his wife, three cats and a large, boisterous crow.
