A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander

It’s not often that one can see such a drastic difference in an author’s work from one book to the next, but that is the case with Tasha Alexander’s second novel. Her first, a Victorian mystery, And Only to Deceive, was full of contrived situations and glaring factual errors, the main one being howler [...]

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NORMAN NICHOLSON

Norman Nicholson.
1914 – 1987
In his introduction to the 1947 Camden Classics edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights Norman Nicholson said,”No artist is an accident, yet if we try to explain genius in terms of heredity and environment we are very likely to misunderstand it greatly …”
He could have been talking about himself, or he could [...]

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Bookweek Round-up goes Rogue…

So, Book News this week has been left entirely up to me… …bwahahahah *low, evil cackle*.
Shall we shake things up a bit?
Right – first off, I write for children and as such, am completely passionate about kid’s books. Since I’m in charge then, the news this week will be about what interests me [...]

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Split by a Kiss

“The following facts ARE important.Your mum has to qualify for the “brain drain”. Or your dad has to, I suppose, but that doesn’t apply in my case – my dad left my brilliant mum for Kelly so is certifiably brainless….Then you need an accent that makes everyone stop and stare at you. Most of these [...]

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St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves, by Karen Russell

Karen Russell was just twenty-five when she made her publishing debut with this remarkable collection of short stories. Subsequently named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists (a bit odd, given that her first novel, Swamplandia! is yet to be published), Russell is now widely recognised as a rising star of American fiction.
Many of [...]

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High Plains Tango by Robert James Waller

Robert James Waller is best known for The Bridges of Madison County, which I don’t remember well enough to compare to this one, though I do recall it also dealt with the themes of not only Love and loss, but Fate and choice. …Tango is less about the past than that one, [...]

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Why Alfred Burned the Cakes by David Horspool

Almost everything everyone thinks they know about King Alfred is wrong.
Let’s just run through a quick checklist:
He was the first king of all England – Wrong.
He created the Navy – Wrong.
He invented the jury system – Wrong.
He burned the cakes – Wrong.
In fact, the man voted by the British public into the top 20 of [...]

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Bookweek Round-up

NEWS
The week that saw the sad news of the death of Anthony Minghella, also saw the deaths of two prominent writers.
Arthur C. Clark dies at the age of 90.
Tallish, bespectacled, rather big-eared and increasingly thin on top, he tended to be described by his friends as a beaming and highly articulate shambles of a chap, [...]

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Interview with Danny Rhodes

Lisa Glass talks to author Danny Rhodes about writing, weed and ASBOs.
Danny Rhodes’s gritty novel, Asboville (published by Maia Press) is the story of JB who is served with an ASBO and sent away from London to live in a caravan with his uncle at the seaside, where he faces a long summer painting beach [...]

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Lampa razyskivaet Alladina/Lamp Seeks Aladdin by Daria Dontsova

“The population of Moscow is three-quarters idiot,” said the girl as we swapped shoes. “I hope you’re just sick in the head and don’t have athlete’s foot or some such. What’s with the silence? Hey, you old bag!”
I quietly slid my foot into the light beige shoe. What was there to [...]

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