I’m in my early fifties prime (!) and I’m not afraid to say that I love reading modern YA books now and then … but only good ones, naturally. By using the term ‘YA’ here, I’m distinguishing them from those books we usually call ‘children’s classics’ (which still appeal to readers young and old alike). I’m Read More
Category: Authors Mc
Q&A with Sophie McKenzie and a giveaway of her latest teen book…
This week the final part of author Sophie McKenzie’s hard hitting ‘Missing‘ trilogy for teens is published. Missing Me completes the story started in Girl, Missing, and continued in Sister, Missing. The books follow the story of Lauren, who is adopted and has always known that. In Girl, Missing, Lauren is fourteen. One day she Read More
A dystopian psychodrama that packs a punch…
I Have Waited, and You Have Come by Martine McDonagh Set in a near future where global warming has wreaked Mother Nature’s revenge on the Earth and made large parts of the globe uninhabitable due to rising water levels, Rachel lives alone in a old mill in the Yorkshire Dales. Jacob used to live with Read More
A gem of a historical romance out of Africa.
The Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh You know how sometimes you’re just in the mood for a sprawling romance, a continent-crossing historical epic, that sort of book. That was me last week, and The Fever Tree is such a book. The novel opens in 1880. Frances Irvine is left destitute upon the sudden death of Read More
Can faith work miracles?
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen This book wasn’t what I was expecting, although it did start off that way… In the beginning there was an empty room, a little bit of space, a little bit of light, a little bit of time. I said: ‘I am going to make fields,’ and I made Read More
Old reviews from 2011: The start of two dogged detective series…
Cop Hater by Ed McBain Ed McBain is the author who really created the police procedural novel, with his series of fifty-five 87th Precinct books written between 1956 and 2005. In the introduction to Cop Hater, he tells how he came up with the idea of a squadroom of police officers, all with different characters, whom together Read More
Evolution goes mad in this YA horror tale
Savannah Grey by Cliff McNish The cover of this book attracted me – it’s not black for a start, and the green combined with autumn leaves is a winner. The taglines suggest something nasty… but combined with romance, and the figure on the cover, you could be forgiven for expecting a rather soft supernatural tale. Read More
My Books of the Noughties
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, and got everything you wished for. I’m still mid-way through the round of family visits, so here’s a post I prepared earlier. Yes it is a list – I’m going to inflict my Books of the Decade on you – all five Read More
How can you cheat death when you’re only 14 …
The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean One of my friend Julia’s recommendations, this is yet another wonderful crossover book by children’s author Geraldine McCaughrean. Surely it must be her turn as Children’s Laureate soon … Imagine your aunt had prophesied that you would die at the age of fourteen, and worse still that Read More
What do you do when love is the only thing left?
The Road by Cormac McCarthy The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the third novel I’ve read this year that is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The others were Far North by Marcel Theroux (reviewed here) and Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (reviewed here). In the post-nuke timeline, The Road is set in the years immediately Read More
