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Fiona Robyn is an author and a blogger living in rural Hampshire in the UK with her partner, her cats Silver and Fatty, and her vegetable patch. Her debut novel The Letters was published by Snowbooks in March '09, followed by The Blue Handbag in August '09. Thaw is next, and you will be able to read the entire novel online here in March 2010. 

She writes a daily blog at a small stone and a blog about being a writer at Planting Words. She collect other people's small stones at a handful of stones and is currently accepting submissions.

She is interested in growing things, Buddhism, psychotherapy, trashy detective novels/TV, paying attention, blogging, banoffee pie, presents, words, and kittens.

 

Sassy Note: Here is my review of The Blue Handbag | Fiona Robyn | Snowbooks

Thaw (2010) more info

Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn't know if she wants to be thirty three. Her meticulously-ordered lonely life as a microbiologist is starved of pleasure and devoid of meaning. She decides to give herself three months to decide whether or not to end her life, and we read her daily diary as she struggles to make sense of her past and grapples with the pain of the present. 'Thaw' explores what makes any of our lives worth living. Can Red, the eccentric Russian artist Ruth commissions to paint her portrait, find a way to warm her frozen heart?

 

Buy Thaw from The Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery) or from Amazon UK or Snowbooks.

 

 

 The Blue Handbag (2009) more info  

After forty years of happy marriage, Leonard thought he knew his wife Rose as well as he knew himself. It's only after her sudden death that he finds her old handbag, which contains a mystery he can't ignore. Accompanied by Lily, his wife's childhood friend, Leonard becomes a reluctant detective as his whole life starts to unravel. "The Blue Handbag" is steeped in a quiet poetry which reminds us to take pleasure from the ordinary details of life - reading stories to our children, sharing silence with our friend over a beer, enjoying the plants Leonard tends for a living - and never to take anything for granted. Read the first chapter for free here.

 

Buy The Blue Handbag from The Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery) or from Amazon UK or from Snowbooks.  

The Letters (2009)  more info

Violet Ackerman has drifted through a career, four children and a divorce without ever knowing who she is or what she wants. After moving to the coast, she starts receiving a series of mysterious letters sent from a mother and baby home in 1959, written by a pregnant twenty-year-old Elizabeth to her best friend. Who is sending Violet these letters, and why? What will happen to Elizabeth's baby? 'The Letters' invites us see what happens when we don't run away. Will love be enough to encourage Violet to stay?

Buy The Letters from The Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery) or Buy from Amazon UK or Buy from Amazon US or Buy from Snowbooks

 

 

 

small stones: a year of moments (2008)  more info

Do you ever find yourself rushing through your days with no time to pause and look around you? Do you pay attention to the aroma of your coffee? Do you notice pigeons gulping from puddles?

This book contains 365 'small stones' - bite-sized truffles of poetry celebrating the extraordinary in the everyday and the ordinary. It will remind you to slow down and engage with your own world, because right here and right now is where the wonder is.  

 

Buy small stones from Amazon UK or Buy from Amazon US or Buy from Lulu

 

A Year of Questions: How to slow down and fall in love with life (2007)  more info

Watching too much trashy television, trying to find something decent to eat in a motorway service station, feeling awkward at dinner parties, putting off the hoovering... is this what life is all about?

These everyday ordinary things happen to us all. This book helps us to discover what we can learn from them. It encourages us to wonder why we hate our boss, and why we keep spending too much money. It invites us to look at the ball of string between our ears and start to untangle it. It nudges us into slowing down, paying more attention, waking up.

As well as the hoovering, life is also about seeing a vase of yellow tulips lit up from behind, making creamy potatoes au gratin for your family, sitting by the sea and watching the waves twinkle. `A Year of Questions' will help you to fall in love with your life all over again.