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Fraternal Fragments - my review of Road Brothers by Mark Lawrence
My goodreads target of 42 books to be read (and reviewed) in 2015 continues to mock me, supremely confident in its inevitable victory as - even now - I just crawl over the halfway line. However, I am...
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Sometimes Numbers are not Enough - My spoiler free review of Chains of the...
Jeff Salyards has conjured up a remarkable world in his debut series. I was delighted that my unsubtle badgering yielded an ARC of the final instalment of the "Bloodsounder's Arc" trilogy. While this...
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With an Unbound They Were Free - Part one of my spoiler free review Unbound
An assemblage of short stories liberated from the imaginations of great story tellers Perhaps it s a product of the busy age we live in that short story anthologies have become more appealing to my...
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More boundless leaps of Imagination - Part 2 of my Spoiler free review of...
So here is the second part of my review of the Unbound anthology published by Grimoak press. I will post it also on goodreads though I should warn you that just putting unbound in the goodreads search...
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A Breathless Read - my spoiler free review of "Nameless: The Darkness Comes"...
I had hopes to finish this book before midnight fell somewhere in the world and so claim Nameless as the last book I read in 2015, but new year celebrations and a family game of Cards Against Humanity...
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A spoilery review of "The Time Machine" by H.G.Wells
This review will contain spoilers because, for me, the books greatest curiosity was what its plot set about the time in which it was written and indeed what any book says about the time in which it was...
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A Spoiler Free Review of "The Second Death" by T.Frohock
This is the third novella in Frohock's Los Nefilim trilogy. You can see my reviews of the others here In Midnight's Silence and here Without Light or Guide.In reviewing "The Second Death" there will...
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A good read by a well read author, my spoiler free review of "The Red Plains"...
G.R.Matthews has created and sustained a unique world in this trilogy that takes what we thought we knew about Imperial China and re-imagines it in a way that feels both different and authentic.In this...
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Pulling all the right strings a spoiler free review of "The Prince and the...
This is the second in G.W. Rewnshaw's Calgary set series about Veronica Chandler, a feisty young private eye whose escapades challenge the expectations of age, gender and indeed genre.I reviewed the...
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A Worthy Winner "The Thief who pulled on Trouble's Braids" by Michael McClung
McClung and the SPFBO Just over a year ago, Mark Lawrence launched his Self Published Fantasy Blog Off in which over 250 self-published novels were submitted in batches to ten volunteer bloggers in a...
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The knives are out but will Nysta get her man? (Review of "Duel at Grimwood...
I read Lucas Thorn's debut book "Revenge of the Elf" a year and a half ago and reviewed it here. As I wrote then, Nysta's tale was both enjoyable and different. It was a reminder that the pantheon of...
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He does it with mirrors - a spoiler free review of "The Wheel of Osheim" by...
Mark Lawrence recently challenged his facebook followers to give him a page number between 1 and 415 and he would try to find a spoiler free quote to share from that page of The Wheel of Osheim. There...
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The disturbing sound of a "Silent City" - my spoiler free review of G R...
A Fresh DirectionThis is the fourth of G.R.Matthews novels that I have read and, at first glance, it's style and context is as different as you could imagine from the other three. The Forbidden List...
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An Eviscerating Anthology - my spoiler free review of "Gutted" edited by Doug...
Sixteen masters and mistresses of horror writing regale us with a selection of "beautiful horror stories." That may at first seem like an oxymoron. Horror is traditionally scary, bloodcurdling, tense,...
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A roaring debut - "Valley of Embers" by Steven Kelliher
I love an Advanced Reader Copy - and so tore into this early release of Steven Kelliher's debut work - "Valley of Embers"Kole Reyna is an Ember, he has realised the same latent ability that his mother...
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Red Sister - this is what is inside it. (My spoiler free review)
As a reviewer, Red Sister set me a challenge I have not had since "The Girl with All the Gifts." The conundrum of capturing how it made me feel and why, but without spoiling the experience for anyone...
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Of Myth and Magic My spoiler-free review of Paternus by Dyrk Ashton
I was talking to my second daughter (she's a quaternary scientist you know) about the fact that we are currently 10,000 years into an interglacial - a pause between ice ages - after the last 100,000...
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A Study in Whethering - Spoiler free review of "The Heart of Stone" By Ben...
I like ARCs Advanced Reader Copies - there is a delicious thrill in getting an early insight into books not yet available to the general public. So I was very grateful to receive an electronic ARC...
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Nothing is Ever Simple - Corin Hayes book two by G.R.Matthews
This is the second book in G.R.Matthews' series of underwater dystopian sci-fi series. It sees our hero on a mission to a different underwater city - one that is neither silent nor homely. The nature...
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The Grey Bastards, by Jonathan French. A spoiler review
I try to observe a rule not to read other people's reviews of something that I've read until after I have written my own, lest their opinions should colour mine. So I am writing this review of The...
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A Story with Heart, - my spoiler free review of "Court of Lions" by Jane Johnson
Decades ago I studied History at A'level - including a paper in European History from about 1480 to 1680. My revision strategy consisted of stringing together every incident of European History and...
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A Marked Story - my review of "Ismark, the Marked boy" by JH Lillevik
I first met this story at an early stage in its development, when the author shared some initial thoughts and drafts with me and few other friends on social media. I find it an exciting and privileged...
View ArticleI don’t get out much, but when I do… I drink and I learn things
Reflections on an October trip to Bristol and Bristolcon2017 Counting back the fantasy related gatherings and events that I have attended, it only just used up the fingers of one hand.The Grim...
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4th Time round and Still the Charm (I re-review Pretty Little Dead Girls).
I've just finished re-reading Mercedes M Yardley's gentle masterpiece "Pretty Little Dead Girls" for the fourth time. The joy of a kindle is that I can mark up fresh notes to myself when different...
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The Most Achingly Beautiful Book I've Ever Read (Probably)
I picked up American Girl by Baird Wells (writing as Iowa Riley) in response to a social media post. I'd no idea really what to expect except that I'd read a couple of Baird's blogposts and been...
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