Magpies wins in round 3 of Ben Judge's World Lit Cup!

What a hoot Benjamin Judge's World Literary Cup is. In the current round, three, Roald Dahl loses ground in a contest with Jenn Ashworth by being dead and having no latest book to be compared with hers, and I have beaten Nicola Barker purely on a penality shoot out in which Ben takes random words from our books and decides which he likes best. Hilariously, I win even though Barker is apparently his favourite author ever!

He does say some really nice things about Too Many Magpies, however:

Too Many Magpies was among the very best things I read last year (and I read in excess of a hundred books a year if that helps put a scale on things) It is real. It breathes. The characters are so perfectly drawn, their conversations so lifelike, that you are drawn in completely. Its representation of a family so spot on you feel you are not reading but leaning against your neighbours wall with a glass to your ear. Elizabeth Baines has an ear for dialogue that most of our most prominent authors would kill for. She is a shining example of why publishers like Salt are so important.