Subtitled ‘A Manual for Writers’, this is a scholarly work that attempts to analyse what makes a story ‘literary’ rather than ‘genre’ and advises on how to go about achieving this distinction. Presented in two parts, after a brief introduction to the topic, the book looks first at ‘Structuring the Story’, in which the author …
Continue reading Story in Literary Fiction, by William H. Coles: #BookReview.
Until I read this short, I hadn’t realised how good Poe was at comic writing. This is a tongue-in-cheek dig at the horror genre that had me laughing out loud. Although some of the constructed names are a little juvenile, I suspect they would have been thought quite revolutionary at the time. The story, inasmuch …
Continue reading The Devil in the Belfry, by Edgar Allan Poe: #BookReview.
Translated from the original Italian, this melancholy novel captures the nuance and subtlety that can so strongly influence a young mind. The wrong thing said, the poor choice made, the misunderstanding never fully comprehended until much later, all act as controllers in the lives of those still forming. This is the story of two young …
Continue reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano. #BookReview.
Fantasy? Science Fiction? Magical Realism? This book is all of these. But it’s also a thoughtful, imaginative, and ultimately terrifying cross genre piece that stirs both emotions and ideas. We’re plunged into an undefined land, except that it must be the so-called civilised world, in an undeclared time, which must be the future. What is …
Continue reading Till They Dropped, by Sue Knight, Reviewed.
This is the first part of a four book series. I have a certain distrust of such books, if they fail to perform the function of a proper story in each volume. This one, it must be said, is marginal. The ending is ambiguous and designed to draw the reader to the next part, which …
Continue reading Red Desert – Point of No Return, by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli, Reviewed.
This book was recommended to me by a friend in Australia; I doubt I’d have come across it otherwise. Full of detail on the personalities involved in setting up and running the first colony in Australia, the book chronicles events leading up to the decision to transport convicts from England, and describes life for those …
Continue reading 1788, by David Hill, Reviewed.
I bought a copy of this book because I’d previously read/reviewed the author’s previous title, Naked Truths About Getting Book Reviews. This is an update of that book, but it’s also much more. If you’re an author in search of reviews, you really should give this book some time. I discovered aspects of review writing …
Continue reading Naked Review: How to Get Book Reviews, by Gisela Hausmann, Reviewed.
The third book in the trilogy, and a fitting conclusion to a compelling story, Pilgrims of the Pool draws the threads together and weaves an ending that’s the only one possible. The book combines three strands, weaving them into a cohesive tale that takes the reader into different worlds. Nick Blaketon, in his continuing search …
Continue reading Pilgrims of the Pool, by Linda Acaster, Reviewed.
A virginal, shy, geeky, young woman falls for a broken-hearted medic on a TV reality show. This comedy romance is peppered with characters that are probably common to this televisual form of torture sold as entertainment. I don’t watch it; it’s not ‘real’ in any proper sense of the word, and generally brings out the …
Continue reading The Leftover, by Brooke Williams, Reviewed.
Cosy crime with dogs. Dogsbody is a Georgie Crane Comi-Crime novel by an author whose work I’ve always enjoyed. As usual, Karen Wolfe gives good value with plenty of laughs, a few deaths, and a romance that might or might not… For lovers of crime, this one will keep you turning the pages to find …
Continue reading Dogsbody, by Karen Wolfe, Reviewed.
The characters in this lengthy romance lead full and interesting lives. They’re an ethnically diverse group with a couple of the lead protagonists being West Indian. The narrative is set largely in New York and Canada and there are cultural references to these two countries that mean little to a UK reader who’s never visited …
Continue reading Letting Go, by Maria Thompson Corley, Reviewed.
This is a different type of thriller. Dealing with the murky lives of Mossad Agents, it follows the early career of Thomas Glaze, a young man totally deluded about his appeal to women, his ability in the field, and his tolerance for drugs and alcohol. Unsurprisingly, with such a catalogue of denial, he fails miserably …
Continue reading The Sweet Oil of Vitriol: A Tom Glaze Hit, by Daniel Eagleton, Reviewed.
Georgie Pattison sings again in this continuation of the amateur sleuth’s adventures. This is a heroine with all the self-doubt, anxieties and fears of any normal woman, but with the courage and sheer bloody-mindedness to find the truth. Justice matters to this lady and she’s willing to take personal risks to find it. Once again, …
Continue reading Laid in Earth, by April Taylor, Reviewed.
Subtitled, ‘23 tales of Wolds and rails’, this book of shorts contains a veritable trainload of charming stories. There are histories, romances, memoirs, ghosts, crime, and even some science fiction and fantasy displayed in this box of delights. Although each story has a different author, there’s unity of approach and style that makes the volume …
Continue reading Dreaming of Steam, An Anthology from Fantastic Books Publishing, Reviewed.
Poetry can be sublime, complex, evocative, tantalising, inspiring, provoking, sensual, thoughtful, engaging and many other things. AM Roselli’s poems manage to fit all these qualities. I first encountered AM’s remarkable poetry and artwork via her website, anntogether.com, to which I was directed by another friend online. I was engaged at once. This is a woman …
Continue reading love of the monster, by AM Roselli, Reviewed.
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Antidote to the Novel
Stuart Aken 