October Book Club/Writing Group Ticket

Our monthly book club and writing group will be on the following dates:

You are welcome to come to both the writing group and book club or one or the other. Please don't be put off coming if you didn't finish the book, you can still join in the discussion or listen to others chat about it. 

We meet at 6:30 - 7:30 for a guided writing session with prompts, suitable for all levels of experience, you can use the time to work on an existing project or try something new. 

We then take a short 5-10 minute break before chatting about that month's book. The conversation is informal and everyone's perspective is welcome but the conversation will be guided, so that everyone has a chance to speak if they want to. There will be questions and prompts to get the conversation going if people are feeling stuck.

At the end of each session, we offer three books to choose from and those attending vote on our next month's book. We try to alternate between fiction and non-fiction so we keep our scope quite broad. 

If you want to join our whatsapp group, send us an email greyareabooks@gmail.com or DM us on instagram @greyareabooks, you will be the first to hear about our upcoming events. 

October book - Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

10% off with code OCTBOOKCLUB

Mexican Gothic meets The Lie Tree by way of Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley in this delightfully witty horror debut. A captivating tale of two Victorian gentlemen hiding their relationship away in a botanical garden who embark on a Frankenstein-style experiment with unexpected consequences. It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden.

But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art.

Gregor's business is exotic plants - lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he's seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter. Driven by the glory he'll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.

The experiment - or Chloe, as she is named - outstrips even Gregor's expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor's experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes. The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse.

But who is cultivating whom? Told with wit and warmth, this is an extraordinary tale of family, fungus and more than a dash of bloody revenge from an exciting new voice in queer horror.