Guillermo del Toro & Cornelia Funke ★★★★ Guillermo del Toro yet again shows himself to be a master of the gothic tale. In this novelisation of the 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, he weaves the fairy-tale story of a young girl, Ofelia, who is taken by her mother to live with her new stepfather, a sadistic…… Continue reading Pan’s Labyrinth
![Monstre [Volume One]](https://the-book-dragon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/53411913.png?w=255)
Monstre [Volume One]
Duncan Swan ★★★★ Deep beneath the Switzerland/France border sits the Large Hadron Collider, built in the quest for answers to some of theoretical physics’ most elusive questions. It was supposed to be safe, but when a malfunctioning experiment explodes, all a rag-tag group of scientists can do is flee the facility and try to make…… Continue reading Monstre [Volume One]
Gone
Leona Deakin ★★★ I don’t often read crime thrillers set in the UK, as I find that they tend to be pretty tame in comparison to their American counterparts, or they go overboard with the gore in order to try and stand out. I was pleasantly surprised that this novel fit neither of those stereotypes.…… Continue reading Gone
Hope Island
Tim Major ★★ Nina Scaife, TV producer and workaholic extraordinaire, is making her first journey to Hope Island, Maine. It’s where her partner grew up, and where he takes their daughter on their annual visit to her grandparents, but this year it’s been left to Nina. She is hoping that the trip will help her…… Continue reading Hope Island
The Doors of Eden
Adrian Tchaikovsky ★★★★ The Doors of Eden isn’t so much genre spanning as genre destroying. It begins with a pair of cryptozoologists hunting for birdmen on Bodmin Moor, and ends with… well, that would be spoiling it. Along the way, it flits through virtually every fiction genre going, with so many twists and turns that…… Continue reading The Doors of Eden
Ghost Virus
Graham Masterton ★ A series of bizarre murders and suicides in London bring together two disparate police officers, who must work together to solve the increasingly unexplainable deaths. I’m not sure that I’ve ever read a Graham Masterton novel before, but if you’d told me that Guy N. Smith or Shaun Hutson had written this…… Continue reading Ghost Virus
Trying to Live Happily Ever After
Clive Lilwall ★ Trying to Live Happily Ever After is a shortish anthology containing 17 very short stories which aim to give an update and twist on old fairy tales and fables. Drawing from the works of such luminaries as Aesop, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen, Lilwall had a rich vein of stories…… Continue reading Trying to Live Happily Ever After
The Constant Rabbit
Jasper Fforde ★★★★ Nobody knows why or how The Event occurred, but in 1965, 18 rabbits were transformed into human-sized and vaguely human-shaped versions of themselves overnight. Since then, they have done what rabbits do, and Britain has divided into those who are happy with or ambivalent about our new lagomorphic citizens. When Constance Rabbit…… Continue reading The Constant Rabbit
A Cosmology of Monsters
Sean Hamill ★★★★★ I thought this was going to be an easy review to write, but so much of the story relies on the reader not knowing what’s coming. I’ve got a whole list of symbolism and elements [flashback to A-Level English Lit], and I can’t mention 99% of it because it would spoil the…… Continue reading A Cosmology of Monsters
The Ninth Session
Deborah Serani ★★★★ When psychologist Alicia Reese first meets her new patient, he is suffering a crippling panic attack in the bathroom of her office. Something about Lucas Ferro troubles her, but she takes him on regardless, sensing that assisting this man will in turn help her manage her own anxieties over the death of…… Continue reading The Ninth Session
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