Book Reviews
Elijah’s Mermaid, by Essie Fox
By: Kirsty Hewitt on November 5, 2012
Elijah’s Mermaid is the second novel by British author Essie Fox, and follows her debut, The Somnambulist. As with the author’s first novel, Elijah’s Mermaid serves up a great slice of Victoriana to its readers. The first part of the book begins in 1850, with a delightfully Victorian-esque chapter title, and proceeds to tell the [...]
The Persephone Book of Short Stories
By: Kirsty Hewitt on October 31, 2012
To celebrate Persephone Books’ one hundredth publication, the publishing house have issued a new volume of short stories, all of which have been written by female authors between 1909 and 1986. Of the included stories, ten are taken from volumes already published by Persephone, ten have been previously featured in their Biannually Magazine, and ten [...]
The Year After, by Martin Davies
By: Jade Cranwell on October 30, 2012
It is December 1919, and Christmas is descending once again over the English countryside. Tom Allen is in London after being in uniform for the last five years, seems not to know what to do with himself. For the last five years, he has been in uniform, fighting in the First World War. Now, the [...]
Red Rain, by R L Stine
By: Sara Garland on October 29, 2012
For those in any doubt, I can confirm that this is the same R L Stine, (often referred to as the Stephen King of children’s horror fiction), who has very successfully thrilled and scared our children with such as the Goosebumps and Fear Street reading series. Indeed given that Goosebumps launched in 1992 you might [...]
Flight Behaviour, by Barbara Kingsolver
By: Kirsty Hewitt on October 29, 2012
Winner of the 2010 Orange Prize for her novel The Lacuna, Flight Behaviour is the newest offering from American author Barbara Kingsolver. The novel takes a single character as its focus, discontented Dellarobia Turnbow, ‘a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise’. She has been trapped upon a failing farm in [...]
Full Blooded, by Amanda Carlson
By: Jade Cranwell on October 28, 2012
Full Blooded opens up where the action all beings; Jessica McClain is shifting into a werewolf. In a world where shifters, vampires, witches and the like are not unheard of, this might not come as much of a surprise. Given the fact that Jessica’s father, Callum McClain, is the most powerful Alpha werewolf in the [...]
Winter of the World by Ken Follett
By: Kate Westrich on October 28, 2012
When I read Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, I found the story, the facts, jaw-dropping. He illustrated the stupidity of World War I, much of which was based on the egos of fallible men. In his follow-up, Winter of the World, Follett writes about World War II. This is the second in his Century of Giants Trilogy [...]
Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland, by Sarah Moss
By: Kirsty Hewitt on October 27, 2012
Sarah Moss, currently lecturing at Exeter University, has previously written two novels, Cold Earth and Night Waking. In 2009, she applied for a position as ‘an expert in nineteenth-century British literature’ at the University of Iceland on something of a ‘whim’, and consequently moved there with her young family. Names for the Sea: Strangers in [...]
The Finno-Ugrian Vampire, by Noémi Szécsi
By: Richard W Jackson on October 27, 2012
…..it happens that thanks to my peculiar background I can read a classic horror story as documentation of my family history. As well as being the first published novel from Noémi Szécsi, released in her native Hungary back in 2002, The Finno-Ugrian Vampire is also her first work to receive an (overdue) English translation. Having [...]
Total Recall, by Phillip K Dick
By: John Redfearn on October 26, 2012
Philip K Dick’s short science fiction stories are not exciting. They’re rather plodding affairs where remarkably ordinary people have rather ordinary lives in a somewhat unusual, somewhat implausible, setting. On the whole that setting, regardless of whether its Mars or Marin, is a rather 1950ish America transposed into the future. Its more likely to be [...]
A Train in Winter, by Caroline Moorehead
By: Jade Cranwell on October 26, 2012
A Story of Resistance, Friendship and Survival at Auschwitz.
Warrior of Rome: The Wolves of the North, by Harry Sidebottom
By: John Redfearn on October 25, 2012
German soldiers of the second world war talked afterwards of the mindless depression brought by the invasion of Russia. Day after day and week after week the same. Driving or walking across the Steppes the same scenery, the same cottages, farms and villages, never seeming to get anywhere, just extending the supply lines and gradually [...]
The Mist in the Mirror, by Susan Hill
By: Guest Reviewer on October 25, 2012
When the cover of a novel clearly announces its genre – in this case a ghost story – you might be forgiven for wondering whether there might be room for doubt. But Hill’s writing sets out its stall from the off, and you know before you are even a few pages into the preface what [...]
Gangster Squad, by Paul Lieberman
By: Mike Stafford on October 24, 2012
Gangster Squad: The True Story of the Battle for Los Angeles; if that title doesn’t float your boat, I’d question your commitment to true crime. Author Paul Lieberman has conducted over 300 interviews to support this weighty tome on the subject of the eponymous Gangster Squad, a covert unit of the LAPD founded to rid [...]
The Prisoner of Brenda, by Bateman
By: Erin Britton on October 24, 2012
The Bookseller With No Name rides again [but never above 29 miles per hour] in The Prisoner of Brenda and it’s just as well there’s murder afoot since the book business is well and truly in the doldrums. As the Mystery Man himself comments, “The book business is in chassis and our footfall is down [...]
Valentina, by Evie Blake
By: Marleen Kennedy on October 23, 2012
The year is 2012 and Valentina, a photographer, is living in Milan with her lover Theo. Although she and Theo have been together for a year now, Valentina can’t commit to the relationship. While Theo clearly wants to take things with Valentina further and would like to introduce her to his parents, she retreats into [...]
Great North Road, by Peter F. Hamilton
By: Simon Appleby on October 23, 2012
At over one thousand pages, Peter F. Hamilton’s latest standalone blockbuster will not disappoint fans, who are used to his books being chunky affairs. If you don’t want to read it, you could use it as a doorstop, knock an unwary intruder unconscious with it or stand on it to reach something on a high [...]
Love and other Dangerous Chemicals, by Anthony Capella
By: Jess Reid on October 22, 2012
After reading the first paragraph of Anthony Capella’s Love and other Dangerous Chemicals I knew I was going to be in for an interesting if confusing read. Written in the style of a scientific journal (with footnotes, references and everything) the book is focused on Oxford University’s biochemist Steven Fisher and his brand new wonder-drug [...]
These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher’s Wartime Diaries, by May Smith
By: Kirsty Hewitt on October 22, 2012
These Wonderful Rumours! is the wartime diary of May Smith, a young schoolteacher from Swadlincote, Derbyshire. When the Second World War is declared, she is twenty-four years old and living with her parents. The diary has been wonderfully preserved by Smith’s son, Duncan, and has an insightful introduction, written by social historian Juliet Gardiner. Gardiner [...]
There but for the, by Ali Smith
By: Kirsty Hewitt on October 21, 2012
Ali Smith’s eighth published book, There but for the met with dazzling praise on its publication in 2011. Critics have heralded it ‘adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling’, ‘soaring, swooping’, ‘joyful, sparkling’ and ‘a real gem’. The mixture of quotes at the outset of the novel are as diverse and original in their choice as Smith’s unique writing [...]
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Mark Oldfield
Mark Oldfield has worked in criminological research for over 20 years. He has a PhD in Criminology from the University of Kent and has carried out research in the areas of risk assessment and prediction and as well as evaluative research on policing, prisons and probation. He has also taught in various Universities on research, crime and criminal justice.
