Come and escape from the world in some great books!
A fun vampire novel whose setting was one of its strongest features, divided between middle class white suburbs and poor black communities; it built tension well in the first half but revelled a little too much in visceral body horror to the point where it became inadvertently funny.
A book the teems with potential - an academic setting within a gothic museum, an unreliable narrator, intense relationships within the scholars, murder, tarot - and yet it somehow fell a little flat and slow.
A sweet and cosy, very low-stakes fantasy novel with engaging characters and a heart: even if Viv and her friends are not terribly distinct from each other, they were a pleasant bunch to spend time with.
A rather flabby and mediocre entry in the Cormoran Strike series, it contains all the ingredients you'd expect: Strike and Robin still fancy each other and do nothing about it; Strike shags other women and Robin remains celibate; Strike drinks tea the colour of creosote and hurts his leg; there's a murder.
Once merely creatures of legend, the dragons have returned to Krynn. But with their arrival comes the departure of the old gods--and all healing magic. As war threatens to engulf the land, lifelong friends reunite for an adventure that will change their lives and shape their world forever . . . When Tanis, Sturm, Caramon,… Continue reading Book Review: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman
Liesl Weiss long ago learned to be content working behind the scenes in the distinguished rare books department of a large university, managing details and working behind the scenes to make the head of the department look good. But when her boss has a stroke and she's left to run things, she discovers that the… Continue reading Book Review: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Eva Jurczyk
Simon Serrailler finds himself in devastating new territory as a sophisticated drugs network sets its sights on Lafferton and the surrounding villagesDCS Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs ops in the Lafferton area as a waste of time. Small-time dealers are picked up outside the local secondary school, they're given a fine or a suspended… Continue reading Book Review: A Change of Circumstance, Susan Hill
Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her . . . and this time it’s all about Pip. Pip is used to online death threats, but there’s one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you… Continue reading Book Review: As Good As Dead, Holly Jackson
When aspiring novelist Christopher Flinders drops out of university to write his masterpiece (in between shifts as a fish delivery man and builder's mate), his family is sceptical.But when he is taken up by the London editor Owen Goddard and his charming wife Diana it seems success is just around the corner. Christopher's life has… Continue reading Book Review: The Editor’s Wife, Clare Chambers
The truth lies not in any claim to reality, but in the place where what is real moves beyond our interpretation of it. True art means seeking to capture the unreal.Rachel Cusk Synopsis A woman invites a famed artist to visit the remote coastal region where she lives, in the belief that his vision will… Continue reading Book Review: Second Place, Rachel Cusk
Many thanks to Anthony Horowitz and Penguin Books for the chance to read this ARC, courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. I've really enjoyed Horowitz' crime capers in the past as he has played with the form: the Susan Ryeland series (Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders) which interpose Atticus Pund's fiction-within-a-fiction detective… Continue reading Book Review: A Line to Kill, Anthony Horowitz
“The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.” I recall doing a Top Five Saturday post - I really should get back into that meme, there were some lovely people taking part! - about mermaids and, unlike Ariel, I could not find any that did not have nasty vicious… Continue reading Book Review: Into The Drowning Deep, Mira Grant
‘What would one call a group of Mitfords?’ asked Nancy, her tiny waist beautifully shown off in its tailored jacket of black and white dogtooth check. She sat by a round table, a glass of sherry at her hand. ‘A haven? A giggle?’‘A swarm,’ said Tom, taking a long draught of ale. Once upon a… Continue reading Book Review: The Mitford Trial, Jessica Fellowes
“They don’t disappear, the dead. It’d be easier if they did. I can see her so clearly. If she walked up those steps now, part of me wouldn’t be surprised. She was such a vivid person.” This fifth installment of Robert Galbraith's - yes, we all know it is J. K. Rowling - offers up… Continue reading Book Review: Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith
“I don't need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like... happens.” I have been holding fire on reviewing this book for a few weeks because it is a - a difficult, problematic novel in my view. A novel which is almost good, almost dealt with… Continue reading Book Review: Such A Fun Age, Kiley Reid
All it would take - so I believed - was one ruler willing to allow people of different faiths to live alongside one another without persecution, and surely they would begin to recognise that their common humanity superseded the division they had been taught to fear? The Tudor period does hold such a firm and… Continue reading Execution, S. J. Parris
Aleja is a dreamer who longs for a life of magic and adventure. So when a mysterious ship arrives in her Spanish harbour city, crewed by a band of ruthless women, Aleja knows it's sailed right out of a legend.And it wants her.But life aboard the Ship of Shadows is more than even she bargained for. It will… Continue reading The Ship of Shadows, Maria Kuzniar
There is nothing like a rich and sumptuous historical novel and the cover of Velton's Blackberry and Wild Rose was so beautiful I had high high hopes. Possibly too high. The novel revolves around two women in eighteenth century London, a setting that I am not familiar with: the sixteenth century has been such a… Continue reading Blackberry and Wild Rose, Sonia Velton
I love the covers of this series of novels by Jessica Fellowes! The blue here is gorgeous! All art deco, beautiful, vibrant. Not unlike the eponymous Mitford sisters around whom the novels revolve. This is the third outing for Louisa Cannon, previously nursery nurse to the younger Mitford sisters and friend to Nancy Mitford in… Continue reading The Mitford Scandal, Jessica Fellowes
In the spirit of anarchy, I chose to read this book - the second of the Leo Stanhope series - without having read the first. I know! ANARCHY starts from this! Being honest, I don't think it mattered a jot: Reeve introduces his transgender Victorian protagonist essentially from scratch with enough - possibly too much… Continue reading The Anarchists’ Club, Alex Reeve
Some series just don't know when to die. But I guess, if you get acclaim - and money - for it, why stop? Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's series was enjoyable enough as a piece of popcorn reading. And the books were better than the awful film - but that's not saying much. In the first… Continue reading A Map of Days, Ransom Riggs
Trigger Warning: child sexual abuse and rape. Ah, Susan Hill, you seemed to have taken a different direction with this book from the rest of the Serrailler series. Had the gentility of Lafferton started to wane for you? Was there only so much you could do with the cloistered - and I choose that metaphor… Continue reading The Soul of Discretion, Susan Hill
Why do we read detective stories? It is a strange genre. Every piece of advice is that tension and conflict are the driver of a narrative and, with this genre, unlike the thriller genre, the most significant conflict - the one which traditionally culminates in murder, as it does with this one - occurs significantly… Continue reading The Sentence is Death, Anthony Horowitz
Hercule Poirot. Arrogant and dandy and moustache firmly in place. An extended cast of somewhat two-dimensional characters. A convoluted and contrived plot - very contrived in this instance. Very contrived. Let's face is, when the plot of a novel revolves around the construction of a battenburg cake, that novel is - for fear of being… Continue reading The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah
Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series is a delight, but has sometimes only vague connections to the eponymous Murder Squad. In The Woods, the first novel, centred on it; but the follow-up The Likeness, centred on Cassie Madox from the first book who is now in Domestic Violence rather than murder and being supervised by… Continue reading Faithful Place, Tana French
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