Three for you again this month. Back when I first started reviewing, one of my first books was Stillhouse Lake, by Rachel Caine. I’d read a couple of her Weather Warden fantasy series years before, but I had no idea she wrote non-fantasy as well, so I was intrigued. I ended up reading, reviewing, and…… Continue reading March Releases
The Lodge
Chris Coppel ★★★ “I wish the animals could shoot back.” Nestled in a remote area of the Scottish Highlands, The Lodge has opened for business and welcomed its first guests. In previous incarnations it had been a farm, then a vegan mindfulness retreat, but now it was open to the hunters and shooters of the…… Continue reading The Lodge
February Releases
My three choices this month are all the next instalment of series I’ve been following since they began: 1993 for Anita Blake (!!!), 2014 for Wayfarers, and 2016 for Oddjobs. For the last couple of years, I’ve had various eye conditions that have prevented me from reading ‘real’ books, and my stubborn refusal to mix…… Continue reading February Releases
One Day All This Will Be Yours
Adrian Tchaikovsky ★★★ “Nobody know where they were when the Causality War started.” At some point in the past, the Causality War began. Nobody knows who started it, when it was started, or exactly how it was started. It was not a war of bombs and guns, but a war that weaponised time itself. Once…… Continue reading One Day All This Will Be Yours
January Releases
Yay, 2021! It’s got to be better than last year. Please let it be better than last year. Please? I’ve had a trawl through the new releases for January, and there’s not really all that much for me this month. Of the two that stood out to me, one is a sequel to 2017’s Dogs…… Continue reading January Releases
The End of Men
Christina Sweeney-Baird ★★★★ It begins in Glasgow – a flu-type virus, fatal to almost half the population. Like any successful virus, it spreads in secrecy, jumping from victim to victim in the early days of infection, spreading asymptomatically and being passed from friend to friend, colleague to colleague, parent to child. By the time the…… Continue reading The End of Men
My Five Favourite Five Star Reads of 2020
I’m not one for giving away a five star rating lightly, so making it onto this list is high praise indeed. These are my favourites novels which I’ve read this year; they’ve not necessarily been published in 2020, nor have I necessarily reviewed them. So, in no particular order, we have… The Thursday Murder Club…… Continue reading My Five Favourite Five Star Reads of 2020
The Stranger Times
C.K. McDonnell ★★★★★ ‘Publication seeks desperate human being with capability to form sentences using the English language. No imbeciles, optimists or Simons need apply.’ Hannah Willis is struggling. It turns out that throwing parties for her wealthy businessman husband doesn’t count as work experience. When she discovers that he’s been sleeping with basically every…… Continue reading The Stranger Times
The Hunger
Alma Katsu ★★★ As I flicked through the preamble to this novel, I saw five words that made me instantly regret requesting it for review – “based on a true story”. I’d read the little description, and somehow decided that it was going to be a horror; instead, I’d ended up with a fictionalised history…… Continue reading The Hunger
Property: A Collection
Lionel Shriver ★★★ A collection of short stories and novellas by Lionel Shriver (she of We Need to Talk About Kevin fame), all with the common theme of ownership, Property is a mixed bag. Stories with deep characterisation and compelling content are peppered with others that don’t really make the grade, and one which I found so poor that…… Continue reading Property: A Collection
