Fell by Jenn Ashworth
Alluring, ephemeral and deadly, Morecambe Bay dominates the coastal areas of south Cumbria and north west Lancashire. No-one who has ever travelled by train between Oxenholme and Lancaster can forget … Continue reading
A Beginner’s Guide to Manga
Guest reviewer Lucy talks us through Japanese manga comics, how to choose, and where to buy them. Manga is, put quite simply, any comic created in Japan. The term has … Continue reading
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
I have spent many hours walking in the last few months. My son, now seven months old, had a fairly long phase of only reliably napping in his pram and … Continue reading
Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind
Guest reviewer and competition winner Dylan Plung would really like you to consider reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I wrote this review several times, tossed it out, … Continue reading
How quirky is too quirky?
How quirky is too quirky? It’s a tricky question, and one that every reader inevitably has to decide for themselves. Some of us might stay comfortably away from anything that … Continue reading
Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor (1985) doesn’t really need another review, having been around and acclaimed for 30 years. This is more of a personal reflection on reading the book for the … Continue reading
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
We’re in the 1970s, and a 15 year old boy nicknamed Tonto has been taken on an Easter pilgrimage to the Loney by his devoutly Catholic parents, their new priest, … Continue reading
Death Sentences: stories of Deathly Books, Murderous Booksellers & Lethal Literature, edited by Otto Penzler with an introduction by Ian Rankin
Death Sentences is, I discover, a continuing project. The collection that I am reviewing contains 15 short stories and was published in 2014; but the idea has taken hold, and … Continue reading
The love of weird in Karen Russell’s short stories
Karen Russell is a North American novelist and short storyist whose two published collections – St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006), and Vampires in the Lemon Grove … Continue reading
The Wine Of Angels (Merrily Watkins Mysteries 1), by Phil Rickman
I really enjoy clerical sleuths, and I don’t know why it has taken me so long to find this one. The Rev. Merrily Watkins is the protagonist of 12 mysteries … Continue reading
Princess Bari, by Hwang Sok-yong
Princess Bari (2014) by the respected Korean author Hwang Sok-yong mixes magical realism with the history of North Korea’s famine, with people trafficking and forced labour in present-day London, and … Continue reading
Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun
You know how it is when you had a favourite author, and millions of years later you wouldn’t be able to name her as a favourite, if asked cold, but … Continue reading
Peter Kennedy’s Fishermen’s Tales
Peter Kennedy’s novel Fishermen’s Tales is a linked collection of stories about plague in the north-east of England, a gated fishing town which turns away starving people on the beach because … Continue reading
Horror Stories–Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson
Edited by Darryl Jones A sizeable percentage of the human race loves to be scared – safely. It’s a characteristic that transcends ethnicity, gender, education, upbringing and virtually every other … Continue reading
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