All posts by Sandra Books

An evening of crime


Marnie RichesTightrope is the first outing for flawed but fabulous PI, Bev Saunders, who takes on a corrupt politician although she becomes the one being hunted.
I stayed up super-late last night racing to the end, hardly daring to breathe‘ Gill Paul, author of The Secret Wife.
Come and meet the award-winning, best-selling Marnie here for a double act of crime!


Paul Finch is a former cop and journalist, now turned full-time writer. He started his career penning episodes of the British drama, The Bill, and has written extensively in the field of film, audio drama and children’s animation. 
The Sunday Times bestseller will be here to talk about his latest nail-shredding thriller, Stolen – a must for all fans of Happy Valley and M.J. Arlidge.

The Song of Peterloo

The heartbreaking historical tale of courage in the face of tragedy

Come and meet local author Carolyn O’Brien as she talks about the inspiration for her powerful new novel.

The Song of Peterloo tells the dramatic story of Manchester mill-worker, Nancy Kay. Desperate to provide for her ailing mother and sensitive son, Nancy is drawn into the agitation for reform. But as she risks everything to attend a great assembly on St Peter’s Field, Nancy is unaware the day will go down in history not as triumph, but as tragedy; the Peterloo massacre.

Carolyn will be here on Thursday 19th September at 7pm.

Tickets cost £3.00 – this includes a glass of wine and is redeemable against the cost of a book on the evening.

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Who wants to join us?

Between 15th June and 22nd June we will be hiding bears in various shops around Urmston – and it will be your job to find them.

To take part you need to come to the book shop to pick up your bear hunt pack, then away you go!

You have one week to collect up to 10 bear tokens.

There are various prizes along the way, with a grand prize of a Bear Hunt back pack for the overall winner.

On Saturday 22nd June at 2pm we will be having a grand prize draw and a retelling of the classic story, here in the shop.

What are you waiting for? Pop into the shop to collect your hunting pack today!

Meet Manchester Poet, Screen and Scriptwriter Keith Hutson


Keith will be appearing at Urmston Library as part of their hugely popular Wordfest on

Thursday 20th June from 7:30-9pm

Keith has written for Coronation Street and for several well-known comedians. His plays have been performed at venues including The Royal Exchange in Manchester. He is co-editor of Poetry Salzburg Review and tours extensively with Carol Ann Duffy.

Tickets cost just £2.00 and can be booked by visiting Urmston Bookshop, Urmston Library, or online on Eventbrite

The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo – Guest Reviewer Kate Vickers

Bridge of Sighs is an example of Richard Russo’s skill in taking the seemingly mundane everyday lives of Americans and creating an engrossing, intimate portrayal of their hopes and frustrated dreams. The story is largely based on the rather self-indulgent reflections of Lou C Lynch, or Lucy. Reflections that appear at first completely unjustified as he has, on the face of it, lived a relatively unextraordinary life. The small town of Thomaston, which he brings to life with melancholic devotion, also appears on the surface of very little interest compared to any other. However, Russo’s magic lies in drawing you close to a world that you would otherwise overlook, to reveal their intricacies and hidden nuances; depths that hook you in as the inhabitants play out their lives, each decorated with their own individual tragedies.

Lucy is the exemplification of the American dream as his family, alongside that of his supposed friend Bobby Marconi, move up through the social strata laid bare by claustrophobic Thomaston, a town divided into the impoverished West End, the up-and-coming East End and the society heights of The Borough. The book opens with Lucy walking through his hometown, where he has become a sedate well-respected big fish in a little, polluted pond. The fact the town is poisoned by the tannery industry, specifically run by Borough residents the Beverleys, perhaps reflects Russo’s opinion of the poisoned-chalice offering of the American dream. That the poisoning is permitted to happen over the course of the book illustrates the cloying inertia of the town, unwilling to disrupt the safety of the established order and rise up against injustices, a point that is only too well made by the brutal beating of a young black boy while half the school looks on.

The love of the town by Lou Lynch, despite his good nature, gradually elicits an intense frustration as his narrow vision is exposed by the adventures and innate flare of Bobby Marconi and the Lynch-muted under-accomplishments of his brilliant wife. Certain qualities of Lucy are admirable, and are attributes that you wish you could see more in people. He is kind, patient, and accepting, bearing no prejudices and treating all those around him as equals. His family also provide a warm sanctuary in an unforgiving world. The reader becomes well aware that the family fortunes can easily slip in the opposite direction as the Lynch family, led by formidable matriarch Tessa, continually fight the dragging tide that threatens to pull them back westwards.  However, Lucy’s persistence in attaching land and people to him, together with his passivity, is intensely frustrating at times as you yearn for certain characters, particularly the women like his mother and Sarah, to break free and flourish sticking one finger up at Thomaston in the process. This is indeed what Bobby Marconi does and this in my opinion makes him the hero of the book.

At times, despite Russo’s obvious craftsmanship, it is hard to keep involved with this slow-paced book, especially as you may fall out of love with Lucy as his less-than-shining personality is exposed by a story of his own telling. However, you will be left with a warm regard for the subtle nuances of American society, of people’s psychologies in an unforgiving world, and appreciate the danger of unquestioned, self-limiting horizons.

By Kate Vickers