Stitches & Stories is a new concept book group for 2023. It is a collaboration between Jo from The Bobbin Sisters (Backfold, Hay-on-Wye) and Jules at North Books. We thought a book group of crafters who sit and discuss books while they work alongside each other would be rather fun. Jo takes the credit for coming up with the first five textile-themed books.

The group meets on the third Thursday of every alternate month from 4pm to 6pm, and refreshments will be included.

Bring a stitching project with you and don’t forget to read the book in advance! See below.

JOIN THE CLUB

The book club meetings are seated events, so places are limited, and the August event was pretty bursting. Please email Jules on jules@northbooks.co.uk or pop into the shop (or The Bobbins Sisters) to add your name to the waiting list. Participation costs £5 (or is free if the book is purchased in advance from North Books at a 10% discount, which is the encouraged contribution arrangement as the bookshop benefits and the reader enjoys a discount).

At North Books, 4 Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye on Thursday 19 October, 4–6pm.

THE BOOK

Our fifth novel up for discussion on Thursday 19 October is The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. The Victorian chiller from the author of The Silent Companions.

'Enormously enjoyable' Evening Standard

'Charming' The Times

'What would you have me paint instead of a battle, Madame?' Genevieve de Nanterre's eyes gleamed. 'A unicorn.' Keen to demonstrate his new-found favour with the King, rising nobleman Jean le Viste commissions six tapestries to adorn the walls of his chateau. He expects soldiers and bloody battlefields.

But artist Nicolas des Innocents instead designs a seductive world of women, unicorns and flowers, using as his muses Le Viste's wife Genevieve and ripe young daughter Claude. In Belgium, as his designs spring to life under the weavers' fingers, Nicolas is inspired once more - by the master weaver's daughter Alienor and her mother Christine. They too will be captured by his threads.