The Rushford Times - A weekly newsletter from Jodi Taylor
Sent on Wednesdays to paid subscribers and Fridays to free subscribers
This week we have:
Jodi Taylor’s Christmas Message
Jodi Taylor’s Book Recommendation: Ring The Bells by C.K. McDonnell💙📚
This week in History: Christmas Day 1642: The Birth of Isaac Newton
Dates for your diary - 2026
December - Book of the Month: The Something Girl, Joy To The World and Storm Christopher
There’s plenty to read this week and you can see everything on the blog too. CLICK HERE for the blog.
A Christmas video message from Jodi Taylor
Update on the Christmas tree.
The Christmas tree is dead. Never to rise again.
The new plug completely failed to solve the problem.
It is now an ex-Christmas tree.
No flowers please.
Ring The Bells by C.K. McDonnell💙📚
Another brilliant book by one of my favourite authors. It’s Christmas time and Grace, the office manager, has high hopes for her carefully organised office party.
Alas – this is not just any Christmas party - this is the Stranger Times Christmas Party. Brace yourself for the unexpected.
A demonic Santa Claus.
A ghoul who has not yet learned not to crap in the corner.
The wonderfully awful Vincent Banecroft.
The policeman with the thing in his head.
The perpetually-stoned Manny and his passenger.
The talking dog – arguably the most normal character in the book.
If you’ve read the previous books in the series then you’re in for another treat. And if you haven’t then start with the first one - The Stranger Times. Trust me, you’re in for a real treat.
The action takes place over the build-up to Christmas. Sinister grottos, indoor snow, and a whole ton of magically influenced Mancunians. As Max herself would say – what could possibly go wrong?
Settle down with a glass – no, a bottle – of Vincent’s special non-alcoholic wine and enjoy a wonderful seasonal read. Exciting, funny, and very occasionally, absolutely heartbreaking.
Have you enjoyed this book too?
This Week in History: Christmas Day 1642: The Birth of Isaac Newton
On 25th December 1642, in the quiet Lincolnshire countryside, Isaac Newton was born in the hamlet of Woolsthorpe near Colsterworth. England was then in the grip of civil war, and few could have imagined that this frail infant, born prematurely and not expected to survive, would come to transform humanity’s understanding of nature more profoundly than almost any other individual in history.
Newton’s early life was marked by instability and solitude. His father had died before he was born, and his mother remarried when Newton was still a child, leaving him in the care of relatives. This sense of isolation shaped a temperament that was inward-looking, fiercely independent and intensely focused. At the King’s School in Grantham, Newton showed early signs of mechanical ingenuity, constructing sundials and small working models. These interests were not yet signs of genius, but they revealed a mind drawn to order, measurement and the hidden principles governing the physical world.
Publishing dates for 2026:
23/04/2026 - Out of Time paperback edition
6/08/2026 A Family Affair - book 2 in the Smallhope and Pennyroyal series is published in hardback, audio and eBook
25/12/2026 - Christmas Day short story - titled to be announced.
December - Book of the Month: The Something Girl, Joy To The World and Storm Christopher
Requiem aeternum to the silver stick. Alas. Merry Boxing Day and hope you all have had a happy Christmas!!
And a Wonder Full Christmas to you, Jodi. I think BBC should broadcast your message - to the Commonwealth.
I am looking forward to your publication dates in 2026. And Murder at Martingale Manor tomorrow.
I hope you have a happy, healthy, productive 2026 with a new Christmas tree to replace the one that 'is definitely defunct'?