Book Review: Woman Eating, Claire Kohda

A fresh and compelling vampire narrative with an incredibly compelling vampire protagonist: this is a novel about people caught between cultures, caught between self-loathing and self-respect; caught between a domineering mother and her own life.

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I Read In 2021

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics November 23: Characters I'd Love an Update… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I Read In 2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Book Settings

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics September 7: Books Guaranteed to Put a… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Book Settings

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Crushes

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics July 13: Book Titles That Are QuestionsJuly… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Crushes

Top Ten Tuesday: Secondary / Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics July 6: Reasons Why I Love ReadingJuly… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Secondary / Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love

Top Ten Tuesday: Places In Books I’d Love to Live

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics February 23: Books That Made Me Laugh… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Places In Books I’d Love to Live

Book Review: The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

‘What did he say before you murdered him?’‘He asked me to kill him.’‘That’s convenient,’ she said.‘And told me the Dragon had made his daughter a monster. He told me she was strigoi. They say the thirst for blood is like a madness – they must sate it. Even with their own kin.’ I remember really… Continue reading Book Review: The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. PREVIOUS TOP TEN TUESDAY TOPICS: February 2: Books Written Before I Was… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had

Top Ten Tuesday, Hallowe’en Freebie

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. A freebie, as I understand it, is any list that broadly fits… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday, Hallowe’en Freebie

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 17!

I find this a very broad category today; A book with a person's name in the title (real or fictional). I mean in every genre, there are a wealth of books containing (or perhaps consisting of solely) the name of the characters: every one of the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl series in Young… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 17!

30 Day Book Challenge: Day Five!

Day Five is such a strange strange week at work! Surreal does not begin to cut it! Anyway, back to the challenge and, today, we are looking for Favourite classic novel. Oh Lord! Again, just one? One?  And what exactly is a "classic"? Ask a thousand readers and you'll probably find a thousand definitions, but… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day Five!

My Swordhand is Singing, Marcus Sedgwick

Sedgwick has been on my radar for a few years now, creeping into the shortlists for the Carnegie Medal regularly. I'd previously read his White Crow, and Midwinterblood. The first of those I had thoroughly enjoyed, bouncing between time zones; the second was breathtaking, tracing echoes of a story back through generations and encompassing wartime escapes,… Continue reading My Swordhand is Singing, Marcus Sedgwick

Intertextuality in the The Woman in Black

Intertextuality is a strange idea. It's reasonable and intuitive that texts refer both backwards and forwards within themselves: how many stories and tales begin and end at the same place and setting? Detective fiction is built on the importance of small early details turning into clues to be resolved later. Anton Chekov went so far… Continue reading Intertextuality in the The Woman in Black

Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindquist

Its odd how my book reading lurks in certain genres for a while: after a crime spree, I notice a range of horror books collecting on the pages of this blog - with more on my to-be-read list. I wonder what it is with Scandi-Lit. Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy; Jo Nesbø; Mons Kallentoft ... There… Continue reading Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindquist

The Bloody Red Baron, Kim Newman

After reading a couple of extremely well-written, moving but rather serious books, picking up The Bloody Red Baron was intended to be a welcome piece of light relief: a bit of fun vampiric horror. Kim Newman takes up the reigns of his alternate history some thirty years after the events in the previous Anno Dracula. Having fled from England… Continue reading The Bloody Red Baron, Kim Newman

Anno Dracula, Kim Newman

I have a confession. I love Dracula. Both the character and Stoker's novel. And I love vampires. Not the sparkly, fairy, effete version populating Meyer's asinine attempts at fiction ("Dear Dracula, do you remember that one night seventeen years ago? Well, we need to talk. Sincerely, Tinkerbell") but full blown raging bloodlust sensual sexual visceral… Continue reading Anno Dracula, Kim Newman