Everything Is Better With Dragons
Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon
31st December 2013
Del Rey Press
ISBN 9780345537201
$7.99
Mass market paperback
Eveline Cooper has finally got to University, unfortunately it’s not all she hoped. It’s a prison that occasionally explodes. Nick is dead and Imogen is in a coma; Eveline is alone with only notes from her uncle Sherlock to keep her sane. The Baskerville conspiracy is building up to openly rebel against the Steam Barons but they need Eveline free to help them on Dartmoor.
2013
A YA retelling of the fairytale ‘The Beauty and The Beast’
Editor: Steve Haynes
Salt Publishing
2013
Contributors:
Jon Wallace Lavie Tidhar Joseph D’Lacey
E. J. Swift Carole Johnstone Cheryl Moore
Steph Swainston Kim Larkin-Smith Mark Morris
Cate Gardner Sam Stone Alison Littlewood
Simon Kurt Unsworth Lisa Tuttle Simon Bestwick
Tyler Keevil Adam L. G. Nevil
‘The Bride’ by Kacie Taylor. Ms Taylor contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing her take on the ‘beauty and the beast’ fairy tale. Of course I love to read new authors and I was intrigued by the premise so I said yes. So far I’m enjoying the story. I will post a review once I’ve finished the novel.
Continue reading “And my next review will be”
Transworld Publishers
2013-11-07
In the 40th Discworld novel it’s steam engine time.
I know I said I wasn’t reviewing any books this month because I’m concentrating on my novel but I got to 43000 words yesterday so I took some time off to finish reading an ARC I’d got from http://www.netgalley.com and another book I’d borrowed from the library. My reviews follow.
29th October 2013
Del Ray
After the events of A study in silk Eveline Cooper was exiled to her Grandmamma Holmes’ Devon estate, Nick has given up the circus and his horses to become a pirate, captain of the Red Jack, Imogen Roth is fending off unsuitable suitors and Tobias Roth is engaged to the Gold King’s daughter Alice Keating, who is pregnant. Desperate for her company in Scotland Imogen persuades Alice to invite Eveline to visit them at the Keating shooting estate. After a joyous reunion all is turned upside down by Tobias’s unexpected arrival. The Gold King manipulates all concerned and Eveline is once more exiled, this time to Whitechapel. Her mission is to seek out the Blue King’s ‘maker’ – the person designing and creating his weapons and war machines.
I recently had the pleasure of reading an uncorrected proof copy of this, the first title in Emma Jane Holloway’s trilogy ‘The Baskerville Affair’. The next part, ‘A study in darkness’ will be published later this month and the final part ‘A study in ashes’ will be published in December. I have already started reading the second book and have requested the third.
But what are these novels about?
As the title suggests, these are a riff on the Sherlock Holmes canon (for my friends in the fandom it’s an AU fanfic). Set in an alternative Steampunk Victorian England ruled by ‘Steam Barons’ who control the power supply and ruthlessly suppress competition using any and all means possible. Eveline Cooper, the orphaned daughter of Sherlock Holmes’s disgraced younger sister and the army captain she eloped with, is making her entrance into Society with her dearest friend Imogen Roth, daughter of Lord Bancroft, former Ambassador to Vienna.
Continue reading “Review: A study in silks by Emma Jane Holloway”
2013
Gollancz
The final adventure of Sookie Stackhouse begins the day after the penultimate novel ended: Sam the Shapeshifter lived and Eric the Vampire is not happy that Sookie used the fairy gift from her great-grandfather to bring Sam back and not to get him out of a sticky political situation. Everyone is upset. And then an old enemy comes back in to Sookie’s life, an instrument of unknown enemies. When she is murdered the police would quite like it if Sookie were the murderer. It all gets very stressful for Sookie as more enemies come out of the woodwork and Eric divorces her. Sam is distant and confusing, Bill a little too friendly.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Dead Ever After’ by Charlaine Harris”
Not yet published – Publication date 3rd September 2013
Angry Robot Ltd
Recently I joined www.netgalley.com, as I mentioned in a previous post, and this is one of the first books I have had the pleasure of reading and reviewing. It, like most of the books on Net Galley, is an ARC, or advance reader copy. Therefore I shall restrict this review to the plot and characters, and not discuss any perceived faults in the text, just as the author has asked. I’m nice like that.
‘The Woken Gods’ is set in Washington D.C. in the near future where all the gods have been woken from an eons long sleep. The Society of the Sun, which effectively rules the world now, as they were the ones who subdued the gods, keeps everything under control, with the help of magical relics.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 