The Dust Of The Red Rose Knight by James Bennett
It befell in the days of Arthur Pendragon that there lived a thief and a lover of men called Tomas, the Red Rose Knight...
When Tomas O’Lincoln, half-fairy and outlaw, learns that knights from Camelot hunt him in the forest, he fears he must pay for his crimes. Desperate for shelter, the Enchantress sends him on a reluctant quest to find his way to the Fortress Impenetrable, deep in the darkling heartwood.
Only behind the high black walls of the Archimago’s castle will Tomas learn a Truth Most Vital and come face-to-face with his destiny… But is it a destiny he wants?
Bawdy, humorous and magical, The Dust of the Red Rose Knight is a queer Arthurian romance from the acclaimed author of The Ben Garston Novels, in the finest tradition that never was.
Dyslexic friendly fiction for adults by BOTH Press
Following their successful "Open Dyslexia" Kickstarter in 2021, which led to publishing eight dyslexic friendly fiction titles, BOTH Press is launching on June 7th 2022, their second Kickstarter "Open Dyslexia: the sequel" with more high-profile authors than ever before, lasting 30 days and finishing on the July 4th 2022.
The Kickstarter aims to publish eight more titles of high-quality fiction from bestselling authors: including household names such as Bernard Cornwell and Peter James.
The line-up is full of many front-list authors such as Gareth Powell, J.M Alvey(aka Juliet Mckenna), Scott Oden, Snorri Krisjanason, and James Bennett.
Peter James will also be doing an introduction for the 2022 collection.
There are very few initiatives for reading for pleasure for adults. The eight titles BOTH Press has already published are the only readily available dyslexic friendly fiction for adults in the UK and can be found in libraries and any bookshop. The scale of accessibility is not nearly enough, as around 10% of the UK population deal with some form of dyslexia.
Despite Jay Blades's (the Presenter of ‘Repair Shop’) unique telling of his own learning to read on the documentary ‘Learning To Read At 51’, which the BBC recently aired. There are still few or no resources for adult dyslexia. A glance at Adult dyslexics charity websites and reading charity websites indicates there are few resources on reading fiction for pleasure for adults with dyslexia.
The dyslexic blogger Suzy Taylor who writes for Dyslexia Scotland, said:
"It is frustrating that we now have children's books in dyslexic friendly formats. As adults we apparently do not require books in the same form."
There needs to be a choice for people to read for pleasure, where there are books designed to be friendly to them and are not dumbed down, are high quality and enjoyable fiction, which people can chat and socialise about with friends and family.
Darren Clarke, the director of Succeed with Dyslexia, said:
"This books shop is doing incredible things and helping people to fall in love with reading again" [and] "I love the fact and the thought that has gone through on these [titles] with the spacing, the font, with the colour of the paper and the way that the book just flows."
BOTH Press has had many heart-warming responses of how the books have impacted their lives.
Dr Alistair Sims said:
"Many individuals who have told us their stories do not want to be mentioned due to fear of stigma about their struggle to read. For example a man in his 50s is Scotland had not read a book since he was a child. His partner found us and bought him one of our titles. He read it. Then called us up to order another. He was so happy to actually read. In fact the partner wrote us a letter explaining how much of difference it is making and then ordered the four more for a Christmas present."
BOTH aim to raise £16,000 to publish eight titles. Though looking to the future, they will need more than £20,000 a year to keep publishing eight titles regularly. All funds go toward the book production/ life cycle to make them readily available. The bookshop Books on the Hill and their manager Alistair Sims, who created BOTH Press, receives no profits from the project.
Further information is available at:
https://www.booksonthehill.co.uk/dyslexic-friendly-books-for-adults-/
Review
Gosh, this was a wee riot of a fun book! ‘The Dust of the Red Rose Knight’ is a joyful, adventurous and darn witty romp around Arthurian times. Tomas is a bit of a Scamp - roving around the country taking advantage of ‘stealing’ from the royal coffers. So when three Knights from the Round Table chase him down he is wondering what the hell is going on?! I adored how Tomas overcame them with his wiles - perfect representation for pride month!
I would certainly love to read more about Tomas and his adventures and would love for this to eventually be worked into a full-length novel or a collection of short stories!
The only thing I would say is I felt it did cram a lot of information into such a short story, maybe some of the repetition could have been cut. But honestly, if this was part of making the story dyslexia-friendly then please call me out on this comment! I know nothing about the style and the requirements of writing for dyslexics.
This is such an important campaign and hopefully, you will donate to Kickstarter. I was involved in reviewing one of the books last year and I was so happy to see that they were doing it again in 2022!
Let me know if you pick one of these books up!
