Review: The Heiress Companion First published in 1981, The Heiress Companion is a simple romance where a group of unmarried people descend on the same house and have to overcome differences in opinion and social standing before any resolution can be reached. At the forefront of the novel is Rowena Cherwood who is in her(…)
Fiction
Book Review: The Vagabond King – James Conway
Review: The Vagabond King Growing up is never easy for anyone. Our teenage years are often a difficult time and while many thrive, others struggle under the weight of so many pressures. There are no easy solutions to maturity though, it’s simply a case of riding the wave and getting through. In James Conway’s The(…)
Book Review: Bitten – Dan O’Brien
Review: Bitten Werewolves are one of the popular ingredients for horror stories and films but there is always the challenge to do something different with them rather than rehashing what has gone before. Dan O’Brien’s Bitten explores the myth of werewolves but from a slightly different angle. In the cold Minnesotan town of Locke some(…)
Book Review: Brownie Fix – Ellen Cardona
Review: Brownie Fix Persey is a woman who seems to have it all but life takes a terrible turn when she loses her first child to a tragic miscarriage. Many months later, she is blessed with a healthy baby boy but a combination of grief and postnatal depression make it impossible for her to cope.(…)
Book Review and Excerpt: Tangled Ties to a Manatee – Kalen Cap
Review: Tangled Ties to a Manatee I do like books with curious titles and this debut offering from Kalen Cap is no exception. This comedy thriller is built around the manatee of the title that has the luxury of being safely in a tank while outside the rest of the world is very complex indeed.(…)
Book Review: Crime Fiction for Beginners – Gervase Shorter
Review: Crime Fiction for Beginners Don’t be fooled by that title. This isn’t a step by step guide on how to write crime fiction but a murder mystery. Shorter’s novel offers one murder case that is a little complex and the detectives investigating the crime are certainly not short of suspects. The premise to the(…)
Book Review: Conquest – Vik Rubenfeld
Review: Conquest I’ve thought in the past about how cool it would be to be in a rock band. Imagine being young in a group like The Beatles where you don’t just wake up to fame and adoration but your every song is writing another chapter in the glorious history of music. Vik Rubenfeld’s Conquest(…)
Book Review: Cedardale Court – Nathan Lee Christensen
Review: Cedardale Court They say you can’t pick your neighbours and whenever you move to a new area you always hope it will be a quiet neighbourhood where everyone minds their own business. If you want peace, serenity and no action then it’s probably wise not to move to Cedardale Court. Canner Connelly and his(…)
Book Review: The Flight – M.R. Hall
Review: The Flight I’ve never had a fear of flying and on one holiday I flew ten times in the space of a month without an ounce of anxiety. That said, I haven’t much experience of turbulence which I imagine is pretty frightening. M.R. Hall’s The Flight depicts the tragedy of a plane crash and(…)
Book Review: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Review: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood remains my favourite novel but I have been eager to sample his other work too. I have read The Elephant Vanishes and Underground but the likes of Kafka on the Shore remain on my TBR pile, as did the epic The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, until now(…)
Book Review: The Dark Yergall – Jason Sullivan
Review: The Dark Yergall I love dystopian novels even though they are bleak. Like sci-fi, dystopian novels speculate about what the future holds, but deliver a future that while advanced also seems frighteningly close to how we live today. Brave New World and 1984 are the best dystopian novels I have ever read but I(…)
Book Review: The Crimson Pact: Volume Two – Paul Genesse (Ed.)
Review: The Crimson Pact: Volume Two Although not every story appealed to me in the first volume of The Crimson Pact, I felt it was a good collection overall with plenty of variety. Volume Two promised more of the same but this time with the added bonus of sequels to some of the stories from(…)
Book Review: The Crimson Pact: Volume One – Paul Genesse (Ed.)
Review: The Crimson Pact Heaven and hell, angels and demons, the battle between good and evil is an enduring theme that will never grow old. The last time I was fighting demons was on the PS3 in Darksiders so the prospect of a compilation of short stories involving battles against demons was certainly appealing. A(…)
Book Review: Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story – Rachel K. Burke
Review: Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story Romance and music – what’s not to like? Well, that was my rationale behind agreeing to review Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story. It feels a bit like a ‘coming of age’ story, with the characters finally having to grow up and face difficult choices –(…)
Book Review: Grotesque – Natsuo Kirino
Review: Grotesque I first came across Natsuo Kirino’s work with her brilliant novel, Out, and have since read Real World, which was quite good but couldn’t match up to Out. Kirino’s novels focus on the dark side of Japanese society and put their emphasis on women trying to survive in this often gritty and brutal(…)
Book Review: In Leah’s Wake – Terri Giuliano Long
Review: In Leah’s Wake This acclaimed debut novel from Terri Giuliano Long has been selling well for many months and is one of the success stories of indie publishing. Naturally, I was ready to dip in and see if I could find the secret to Mrs Long’s achievement in a novel about an ordinary family(…)
Book Review: After the Fog – Kathleen Shoop
Review: After the Fog Rose Pavlesic is a very together woman – on the surface. Devoted to her role of Community Nurse, Rose finds the problems of the townspeople quickly overwhelm her thoughts. Luckily, her family are all headed in the right direction so there’s nothing there to worry about… or so she thinks. However,(…)
Book Review: Interview with a Jewish Vampire – Erica Manfred
Excerpt: Interview with a Jewish Vampire “So nu?” said the vampire thoughtfully as he sat down next to me at the Mitzvah bar on Orchard St. “You must be Rhoda?” He’d picked me out of a line-up of twenty-something’s. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. We had met through JDate. I was(…)