A Manchester author’s new book follows a cardigan-wearing, greying café owner who is also a fearsome thousand-year-old witch. The central female characters find strength in community, solidarity and reciprocal trust.
Hazel Hitchins went to school in Wythenshawe, Manchester before studying creative writing at Bolton University. Hazel recently has a book event at 11 Central in Salford Quays where she invited two fellow authors to promote their books alongside hers. Welsh writer, Deanne Adams, author of The Heretic’s Servant, and Manchester-based Donna Brown, author of The Shattered Truce
Aggie has reached that “certain age” – in her case, a thousand years or so, give or take a decade.
After centuries of bringing kings to their knees, running a small-town cafe isn’t how she imagined her life would pan out. Now, thanks to the machinations of the false vegan from across the road, she risks losing even that. And just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, along comes her old friend, Babs, in her House-on-chicken-legs, ready to ruffle some feathers with her unique blend of borscht, tough love and alcohol.
But everybody has a secret – the grocer who hides his loneliness behind a cheery smile, the neighbour crippled by debt and grief, and the young woman who jumps at her shadow – and before Aggie can help anyone else, she has demons of her own to lay to rest. Can she confront her past to save her future? What is the ‘Vegan’ really hiding? Will Babs ever let her have the last word?
Raucous, rowdy, and heart-wrenching and heart-warming in equal measures, Babs and Aggie is a magical tale of love, loss and the comfort of a friendship forged through food, laughter and a LOT of Slivovica.
Babs and Aggie: The Good, The Bad and The Vegan was published on the 28th February 2025.
