Nikita Jane Garner

For several years now, my handful of Twitter followers have been audience to multiple weekly retweets of articles, stats and news stories concerning the problems faced by the NHS and junior doctors, largely thanks to Jeremy Hunt’s expediency and ineptitude. Is there a single statistic the man hasn’t yet managed to warp for his own ends? More recently, my (re)tweeting regarding the NHS has increased has increased, (probably to the dismay of the 90% of my followers who are sheep farmers; they’re more interested in Michael Gove’s ineptitude these days) and the reason for this is because I’ve started researching and working on a novel where the protagonist is a junior doctor. It’s early stages yet, but the plot is slowly taking shape. Writing about current, raw, politically-sensitive issues is something I’ve dabbled in previously when talking about farming, but it was nowhere near on this scale. I realised instantly that in fictionalising something which for many is real, exhausti...

Anyone who's been near my social media channels lately will know that I've been engrossed in Gabriel Tallent's much talked about debut novel, My Absolute Darling, the instant success of which has been partially attributed to an unsolicited blurb by Stephen King . I have no doubt, however, that this book would have made waves very quickly without that endorsement, had it been so .   I finished reading My Absolute Darling last night and have been unable to stop thinking about it today. There were times I couldn't put it down. I had to force myself to close it at 2am because I had work the next morning. There were times I was so appalled at what I was reading I simply couldn't carry on. Turtle Alveston is one of the strongest, most convincingly flawed, rounded, incredible and terrible characters ever written - and she's 14. A million-and-one synopses online will tell you she is a dead shot, a loner, equipped to survive anything and anyone - except the person w...