The Caffeine Chronicles: % Arabica, Spitalfields

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I've visited a fair few specialty coffee shops over the past 16 years. Many of these cafes have been beautifully and thoughtfully designed. But the new branch of % Arabica in Spitalfields really takes the cake (canelé, perhaps) with its stunning coffee bar. If you enjoy the works of Yayoi Kusama, you'll probably feel at home here.

The Birmingham Caffeine Chronicles: Perch Bakery

Perch Bakery is a beautiful new cafe in Birmingham that serves specialty coffee, creative brunch dishes and exquisite pastries. I indulged in all three of these when I paid a visit to Perch en route to Wolverhampton on Saturday and I was very impressed.

Book Review: Kingsrise by Anne Mattias

DI Niamh Khalid, the protagonist at the heart of Anne Mattias's debut novel, Kingsrise, has had better Halloween nights: first, her beloved teenage brother Lance and his friends find themselves in trouble with the law and then a body shows up on the beach. It turns out that the man is critically wounded, not dead, but working out who he is and where (or when) he has come from proves challenging for Niamh and her team. And then a dead man dressed as a knight is found near The Gate, the stone arch on the outskirts of Niamh's sleepy town, and things become even stranger — and more troubling.