I discovered the world of Alfred Hayes a couple of years ago when I read My Face For the World to See (reviewed here). That novella explored the doomed relationship between a nameless married narrator who rescues a younger woman from drowning at the beach in LA. The writing was so beautiful, so intense, so Read More
Month: May 2020
Grady Hendrix – a horror writer with style!
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Firstly, my review of his newest book is up at Shiny New Books. Don’t you just love the cover above! Click HERE to read it. This one is set in the same milieu as his book My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which I reviewed here, cover to your Read More
Two reviews – a dystopian debut and an Irish crime thriller
The Third Magpie by M.S. Clements The Third Magpie is a dystopian romance set in an insular post-Brexit England, now called New Albany, that is (at least partly inspired by I’d wager, and) approaching Atwood’s Gilead in some of its strictures. Sons are revered, young women are once again chattels, to be married off in Read More
Lockdown Review Avoidance Measures!
Playing with My Books – A Publisher’s A-Z Rather than write reviews, I’ve been ‘playing with my books’. Not bookspine poetry this time, but I thought I’d see how much of an A-Z I could make with publishers logos which are initials. I set some strict criteria, single letters only unless they were doubled, or Read More
20 Books of Summer 20
Yay, on June 1st, 20 Books of Summer as hosted for several years by Cathy at 746 Books, is back for 2020. I’ve signed up for this challenge for four years now, but never reaching the full twenty books, my best has been 15/20. However, it does help clear some books from the TBR. Yes, Read More
Matthew Haigh – Death Magazine – Blog Tour
I am not a poetry expert in any shape or form, having read little of it over the years. But last year I read a rather fab book, The Point of Poetry by Joe Nutt, reviewed here. This book aimed to encourage its readers to give poetry a go, and inspired, since then I’ve added Read More
Some good reads from pre-blog days, and what I thought about them then… #11
I am reading lots, but am finding it hard to get into reviewing whilst I’m preoccupied with rebuilding Shiny (which is going well). Thus, I’ve turned once more to my trusty spreadsheet to bring you a selection of my capsule reviews from my pre-blog days. This time, five crime/psycho thrillers that I read in 2006 Read More
Catch-Up – NOT the Wellcome – Obama – Diski
NOT the Wellcome Book Prize Firstly, I was absolutely delighted that Constellations by Sinéad Gleeson (reviewed here) won the vote for the ‘NOT the Wellcome Book Prize’. It’s an outstanding book, and I was relieved that it did win by a country mile. The shadow panel (Rebecca of Bookish Beck, Clare of A Little Blog of Books, Read More
NOT the Wellcome Book Prize – Two from our Shortlist
So the shadow panel (Rebecca of Bookish Beck, Clare of A Little Blog of Books, Laura of Dr. Laura Tisdall, Paul of Halfman, Halfbook and I) managed to pick half a dozen from the 19 books we longlisted – some picked themselves, others needed a bit of discussion and a deciding vote. The six are: Exhalation by Ted Chiang Invisible Read More
Shiny Linkiness
Today over at Shiny New Books is my review of the wonderful third novel from Natasha Pulley: The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Pulley’s third novel revisits the characters of her first, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (reviewed here) and takes them back to Japan in the late 1880s, where the clairvoyant Keita Mori will be Read More
The 10 albums that most shaped my musical taste
There are millions of these so-called challenges on FB at the moment to post 10 pictures, 1 a day, no comments, etc etc etc. I recently did this, but closet rebel that I am, I declined to not comment – what’s the point if you can’t explain why you picked the item under consideration? However, Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The Road
My favourite monthly tag, hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links in the titles will take you to my reviews where they exist. This month, my links are all on a single theme, which I’ll tell you at Read More