Hannah King is a liar, so everyone says. That means her stories of growing up in the Rhondda, as told in Six Pounds Eight Ounces by Rhian Elizabeth, must be treated with caution. Set in 1660, Matthew Francis’s The Book of the Needle is a story of religion, magic and power politics told by the King’s tailor, Arise Evans, who is charming, irritable, playful and – at least part of the time – insane. They talk to Jon Gower.