Book Reviews

Fahrenheit 451
2 September 2013

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury captivates his reader from the very beginning in Fahrenheit 451 with the opening lines ‘It was a pleasure to burn.’ This immediately introduces the books protagonist, fireman, Guy ...

Renegade
27 August 2013

Book review: Renegade by Robyn Young
The second of her Insurrection trilogy, Robyn Young’s Renegade sees the return of Robert Bruce’s quest to sit on Scotland’s throne. As King Edward of England is closing in on ...

The Lovely Bones
16 August 2013

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel about the afterlife is certainly original. When Susie Salmon is raped and murdered at the age of 14, she begins to watch her family and friends ...

Target Churchill
15 August 2013

Target Churchill by Warren Adler and James C Humes
Soviet operatives have infiltrated British and American governments at the highest level. As Churchill prepares to launch the Cold War, Stalin unleashes his trained mole, an American Nazi who served ...

Murder at Wrotham Hill
14 August 2013

Murder at Wrotham Hill by Diana Souhami
Murder at Wrotham Hill takes the killing in October 1946 of Dagmar Petrzywalski as the catalyst for a compelling and unique meditation on murder and fate. Dagmar, a gentle, eccentric ...

Laidlaw
13 August 2013

Laidlaw by William McKIlvanney
Meet Jack Laidlaw, the original damaged detective. When a young woman is found brutally murdered on Glasgow Green, only Laidlaw stands a chance of finding her murderer from among the ...

Freezing Point
12 August 2013

Freezing Point by Karen Dionne
The polar icecaps are melting - fast. In a drowning, desperate world, the Soldyne Corporation sees an opportunity: Melt Antarctic icebergs into drinking water using their microwave satellite array, ship ...

49 Mix Tapes
6 August 2013

Book Review: 49 Mix Tapes by Jeff Tompkins

Being stuck in the 80s myself I had high hopes for the novel 49 Mix Tapes by Jeff Tompkins which is set between 1985-89, I wanted plenty of 80s pop culture references, wanted to ...

My Cousin Rachel
22 July 2013

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
As one of the most acclaimed and accomplished female authors of the early twentieth century, Daphne du Maurier used all of the imaginative and technical skill that made Rebecca a ...

The Dog Stars
16 July 2013

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

We should all love a place as deeply as nature writer Rick Bass loves the Yaak Valley - sink to our knees awed by the splendor, find ourselves seduced as ...

The Watcher in the Shadows
15 July 2013

The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Carlos Ruiz Zafòn’s latest novel to be translated into English, The Watcher in the Shadows, is an eerie affair not to be read at night. When Irene’s father passes away, ...

Memoirs of a Geisha
9 July 2013

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I am a fan of Japan and it is there their culture and style of writing that I find most fascinating. So, even though this book is by an American ...

The Long Earth
8 July 2013

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Sci-fi and fantasy giants Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett collaborate on a new novel, The Long Earth; a novel that has more depth than the traditional yarn about fantastical worlds ...

He Loves Lucy
26 June 2013

He Loves Lucy by Susan Donovan

Lucy agrees to be put under scrutiny as she is buffed up by personal trainer Theo to be transformed from ‘fitness challenged’ to fabulous. She has no intention of becoming ...

Foe
24 June 2013

Foe by J.M. Coetzee
Nobel Prize for Literature winner J. M. Coetzee’s Foe is not normally the sort of novel I’d enjoy – it is essentially told as a monologue, the main character uses ...

The Prisoner of Heaven
18 June 2013

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books returns with the chilling instalment The Prisoner of Heaven. Daniel Sempere and his best friend Fermìn Romero de Torres receive an unwelcome visitor ...

I Promise Not To Suffer
17 June 2013

I Promise Not To Suffer by Gail D. Storey

Living in Wyoming, USA, I once became fascinated with the book Seven Half-Miles from Home by Wyoming artist and naturalist Mary Back.  Suffering from circulation problems bad enough to kill ...

The Armada Legacy
16 June 2013

The Armada Legacy by Scott Mariani

Scott Mariani’s latest thriller in the Ben Hope series sees Ben pushed to breaking point in a race across continents. When his ex-girlfriend is kidnapped after a party celebrating the ...

Arch Enemy
15 June 2013

Arch Enemy by Frank Beddor

I've finally finished the third book and once again I'm feeling like I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. Though it hardly remind me of the first book, I ...

Seeing Redd
14 June 2013

Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor

Seeing Redd Review - 'The Evil Redd Heart Has Returned.'     This is the second book of the trilogy and it does pick up from the ending of the first one. This ...

One Dozen Short Stories
13 June 2013

One Dozen Short Stories of the Strange and Spectacular by Milo James Fowler

1 Dozen collects 12 flash-sized tales in the slipstream, horror, and science fiction genres -- 11,000 words of weird, wonderful goodness in all. (Author Description) The very short product description is ...

The Assassins' Village
12 June 2013

The Assassins' Village by Faith Mortimer

The Assassins’ Village” by the acclaimed indie author, Faith Mortimer, introduces, Diana Rivers, writer, sometime actor and amateur sleuth. When an expatriate theatrical group gather to discuss their next play there ...

The Aunt Sally Team
11 June 2013

The Aunt Sally Team by Flick Merauld

When Bill Green puts a notice in a post office window in Oxford, he hopes for a group of intellectually stimulating companions with whom to share long summer evenings playing ...

The Bluewater Killer
10 June 2013

The Bluewater Killer by C. L. R. Dougherty

A peaceful journey under sail on a classic yacht turns into a gut-wrenching nightmare for a beautiful, manipulative, and not-so-innocent young woman. A distraught father enlists the aid of some ...