Despite having over 40 million copies of her novels in print worldwide, until recently I had never read a single word of Jodi Picoult before. While I’d heard of her most renowned successes like “My Sister’s Keeper”, I never would have thought to pick one up until I stumbled across her latest release “By Any Other Name”. Centred around two women born centuries apart, united by blood, a talent for playwriting and the misfortune of being a girl in a world that doesn’t want to hear our stories told, I couldn’t resist.

The market for fantasy sagas has increased exponentially over the past couple of years, with the rise of BookTok saturating the genre with fresh and eager new writers hoping to publish the next hit. However, some of us have noticed that with the rise in popularity, so accompanies an increase in the same hackneyed tropes and deficient technique in attempts to cash in on a commercially viable trend.