Come and escape from the world in some great books!
I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to… Continue reading Book Review: This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
“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
“Too many words,” said Gideon confidentially. “How about these: One flesh, one end, bitch.” How do you review a book like Gideon the Ninth? It is a book that I loved! But it is also a book that has many flaws, alongside all those elements that rightly deserve praise. A book that gloriously refuses to… Continue reading Book Review: Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
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to live alongside one another without persecution, and surely they would begin to recognise that their common humanity superseded the division they had been taught to fear?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
“I'm just a girl.""It is tragic how well you have been taught to say that with sadness rather than triumph.” Patrick Ness... Dragons... The Cold War... yes please! It is no shock to readers of this blog that Patrick Ness is one of my favourite authors: the Chaos Walking Trilogy, A Monster Calls - which… Continue reading Burn, Patrick Ness
For the sisters & the sistas & the sistahs & the sistren & the women & the womxn & the wimmin & the womyn & our brethren & our bredrin & our brothers & our bruvs & our men & our mandem & the LGBTQI+ members of the human family
It does look like this blog has become a Natasha Pulley fanclub recently! Some of that has been catching up with my reviews, amd I have been reading other people - in fact, this is the first of three reviews needing to be written so I had better get on with it - but if… Continue reading The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, Natasha Pulley
At first glance, this novel appeared to be treading familiar ground: the gaslit streets of a fogbound London, hanson cabs, Fenian plots. One expects to be run down by Sherlock Holmes at any moment whenever Thaniel Steepleton ventures outside. Yet, from the outset, Pulley's novel bursts with a lively prose and wry narrative voice which… Continue reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley
“It’s about to be gay DEFCON five in this administration. For God’s sake, put some clothes on.”
"Angels could look like many things." So can monsters.
I was going to say "In no particular order..." but as I wrote the words, I thought No! I shall give this list an order! So, listed by genre rather than by preference - because, how can you choose between yout favourites? - my top ten are Gothic Deliciously dark and creepy tales to chill… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesdays: Favourite Books of 2019
It has been an age since I read The Night Circus - so long ago that this blog did not exist - but I remember it as ephemeral, atmospheric, beautiful and moving. So the news this year that Morgenstern was bringing out another novel was huge - huge! So it was downloaded on the day… Continue reading The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
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. I skipped over last week's TTT because I am an utter philistine… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Changes in Reading Habits
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. Poetry I thought I'd start this with two of my favourite poems… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Give Off Autumn Vibes
What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
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
I have sat on this book for a while since finishing reading it - partially as a result of workload; mainly because it, like The Heart's Invisible Furies and many others, is a book that deserved some time to settle and be absorbed before launching into a review. The novel revolves around a single character,… Continue reading 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak
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. So this week we are looking at character traits we love. Things… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Character Traits I Love
Top Five Saturday is a meme hosted by Devouring Books to discover and share books that all have a common theme. Previously, the focus has included witches, werewolves, thrillers, faeries, fairy tale re-tellings, high fantasy and many more. This week, we are looking at book in excess of 500 pages. So many to choose from...… Continue reading Top Five Saturday: Books Over 500 Pages
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
Disclaimer: Received from NetGalley and the publisher, Penguin, in exchange for an honest review. There are some novels which flow fluidly like a river. Others are curved and twisted. Others are very linear taking a route from inciting incident to resolution without a deviation. Others are shaped like a tree, branching and dividing but never… Continue reading The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy
It is no secret that I love my fantasy. I cut my reading teeth on fantasy - thank you Tolkien and Eddings and so many others! I love the way that the freedom of a fantasy world can throw a light into the contemporary. I love the sheer fun and spectacle that can come with… Continue reading The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon
How does Simon Serrailler recover from a vicious assault at the hands of paedophiles, which left him on the verge of death? How does Serrailler manage his post-traumatic stress disorder? Entry number nine in Susan Hill's DCS Simon Serrailler series picks up where the previous novel, The Soul of Discretion, finishes: Serrailler is in hospital… Continue reading The Comforts of Home, Susan Hill
Why is it that the words of female sexuality - and of female anatomy - are either rendered taboo or fetishised in our society ? Vagina. Clitoris. Vulva. Menstruation. Compared to "cock", there is a different quality in these words. A frisson of shock and challenge. And that is a frisson which Broder does not… Continue reading The Pisces, Melissa Broder
I have lived many lives inside this body. I lived many lives before they put me in this body. I will live many lives when they take me out of it.
The Book Lovers' Sanctuary 
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