Boring. Going nowhere. That was Tarah’s life in the UK, before she moved to Fuerteventura to start a new adventure. But things came unstuck quicker than she’d planned. A dead guest on the holiday complex she manages threatens to pull apart her hoped-for dream life.
If she wants to keep her job and save the reputation of the business, she’s got to find out what happened to Patrick. Did he die of natural causes – or was he murdered?
Tarah’s pet guinea pig, Mr Bob, has a knack for sniffing out trouble and he suspects foul play. The mission is on: Who Killed Patrick?
With the assistance of Mr Bob and Diego, a local plumber, Tarah turns amateur sleuth to find out the truth.
Can Tarah and Mr Bob find the murderer before it’s too late? Will they be able to save the business and protect their blissful new life?
Hardcover, 320 pages Published: February 6th 2020 by Trapeze ISBN:1409192172 ISBN13: 9781409192176 Edition Language: English
Feminist gothic fiction set between the late 19th century and the early 20th century – an era of burgeoning spiritualism and the suffragette movement – that couldn’t be more relevant today.
England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly re-married to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction.
She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to recreate the evening. When a mysterious child appears on the grounds, Louisa finds herself compelled to investigate and becomes embroiled in the strange happenings of the house. Gradually, she unravels the long-held secrets of the inhabitants and what really happened thirty years before… and discovers her own fate is entwined with that of Clewer Hall’s.
Series: Fiction Without Frontiers Imprint: FLAME TREE PRESS Distribution: Marston Book Services
Available in HARDBACK, PAPERBACK and EBOOK editions
Vintage Crimes will be a CWA anthology with a difference, celebrating members’ work over the years. The book will gather stories from the mid- 1950s until the twenty-first century by great names of the past, great names of the present together with a few hidden treasures by less familiar writers. The first CWA anthology, Butcher’s Dozen, appeared in 1956, and was co-edited by Julian Symons, Michael Gilbert, and Josephine Bell. The anthology has been edited by Martin Edwards since 1996, and has yielded many award winning and nominated stories in the UK and overseas. This new edition includes an array of incredible and award-winning authors: Robert Barnard, Simon Brett, Liza Cody, Mat Coward, John Dickson Carr, Marjorie Eccles, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Anthea Fraser, Celia Fremlin, Frances Fyfield, Michael Gilbert, Paula Go sling, Lesley Grant- Adamson, HRF Keating, Bill Knox, Peter Lovesey, Mick Herron, Michael Z. Lewin, Susan Mo o dy, Julian Symons and Andrew Taylor.
Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.
While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears, and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves immersed in an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?
Fast-paced, darkly funny, yet touching and tender, the Skelf family series is a welcome reboot to the classic PI novel, whilst also asking deeper questions about family, society and grief.
Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint.
One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers.
But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes—and the awful source of the magical pigments they use—they find they can no longer stay out of politics.
What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight…
Hardcover, Signed and lettered, 346 pages
Published May 2020 by Solaris Books in association with Goldsboro Books
This was my May Goldsboro Books SFF Fellowship book. It is gorgeous
The Rosie Synopsis
Jebi is an artist. Their sister Bongsunga does whatever she can to keep them both alive. They both have secrets. Jebi has taken the exams for the Ministry of Art but gets co-opted by the Ministry of Armor, Bongsunga is a commander in the Hwagugin resistance to the Razanei invaders who n ow govern Hwagun – or District Fourteen as the Razan call the country.
Jebi discovers something in their time at the Ministry that forces them to make a decision. WIth the help of Vei, their lover and the Duelist Prime of Armor, and the automaton dragon Arazi they must escape, protect art and fight the Razanei. Bit of a tall order for an artist who just wants to paint.
The Good
I love it.
I really enjoyed this book, I took me far too long to realise it was a allegory for the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea in the late 19th century. But with magic and automata. The Westerners – threat and boogie men held over the Hwagugin bu the Razanei – should have tipped me off.
The writing was really immersive, the story engaging and I am so happy about the Queer representation. A non-binary character is amazing, and so many different relationships. It makes such a change from the heteronormative relationships in a lot of fantasy.
The ending left me wanting to know what happened next (although obviously I have some idea of what happened in the real world) in this magical version of Korea. What did Jebi, Vei and Arazi find on the moon?
Every cloud has a silver lining… doesn’t it? Anna is thirteen years old, lives in London with her father, and has Asperger’s syndrome. When her father dies, she moves to Scotland to live with her estranged, reclusive mother. With little support to help her t in, she must use every coping strategy her father taught her—especially her ‘Happy Game’—as she tries to connect with her mother, discover her past, and deal with the challenges of being thrown into a brand new life along the way.
Caught up in a space station turf war between gangs and corrupt law, a lone asteroid miner decides to take them all down.
When an asteroid miner comes to Station 35 looking to sell her cargo and get back to the solitude she craves, she gets swept up in a three-way standoff with gangs and crooked cops. Faced with either taking sides or cleaning out the Augean Stables, she breaks out the flamethrower.
The Rosie Synopsis
‘Jane’ or ‘the Miner’ desperately needs food and fuel, so she puts in to an asteroid-based space station, Station 35. Here she is ripped off by the ore company, finds three rival gangs in control and at each others’ throats, while the ‘decent’ population, lead by ‘Mr Shine’ hunker down in the lower depths of the station, except bar-owner/chef Takata and Station Master Herrera, who both refuse to be forced out of the galleria. Jane decides she’s going to clean up the Station and hand it back to ‘decent folks’.
Plans don’t exactly go as expected.
Basically, have you seen any of those old westerns, the ones based on Japanese films, like Seven Samurai, reworked as westerns, or Clint Eastwood’s work, like Fistful of Dollars? Think that aesthetic, but in space.
The Good
The novel calls on the traditions and tropes of westerns and on those westerns based on Japanese films, and obviously on the original Japanese work. So, the protagonist isn’t named, or only briefly, there are rival gangs and corrupt law officers, the place is far from anywhere with no help coming. I have seen an interesting collection of movies over the years but even if I haven’t seen the specific films, I know enough and can get the feeling over the originals, that the book’s references and plot points make sense.
An example of this tradition is in the naming of the protagonist. The ‘Miner’ is unnamed, given nicknames and only once is her real name and some clue about her identity revealed. This is going to be familiar to lovers of dodgy 60s Westerns based on Japanese books and films. Clint Eastwood famously play ‘The Man with No Name’ in the Dollars Trilogy. If you get the aesthetic and understand the tradition it stands in, this is marvelous fun. It’s not the first ‘spaghetti western in space’ sci fi novel, but it’s the first I’ve read and I liked it.
The pace is fast and choppy, moving between Jane and a character called Steven, although he doesn’t go by that name initially – he’s known as Screwball. They are nominally on the same, then opposed to each other and finally they’re allies. Jane doesn’t like people, preferring to stay out in space, mining and tending her orchids and bonsai trees on her little ship. Steven is a hired thug, working for Feeney, the original crime boss on Station 35. Over the course of the book Jane discovers she doesn’t actually hate humans as much as she thinks she does, and Steven finds himself questioning his life choices after a series of unexpected and painful events.
Basically, they follow the character arcs expected in the genre. They both play hero and anti-hero roles at different points and they both have similar motives initially – they need money. They both become more self-aware and ‘better people’ due to their experiences although acknowledging that they aren’t heroes.
As you can imagine from the foregoing, I found the characterisation enjoyable and fitting perfectly for the genre of the book.
The origins of the dispute and the background of the Station are mentioned in different places in the narrative, so the reader learns more as the Miner does. There are logical reasons for Station 35 being where it is when she arrives. None of the characters are surplus to requirements and the main characters as fairly well fleshed out.
Herrera’s insults are fabulous.
The Not-So-Good
Not much. I’d have liked to know more about the ‘universe’ and Herrera gets a bit characateurish at times.
The Verdict
I enjoyed reading this book, it’s given me hours of enjoyment over the three days I spent reading it. I was on the edge of my seat a lot of the time.
How dangerous is a woman with nothing left to lose?
The year is 1905. London is a playground for the rich and a death trap for the poor. When Sofia Logan’s husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her penniless with two young children, she knows she will do anything to keep them from the workhouse. But can she bring herself to murder? Even if she has done it before…
Emmet Vinsant, wealthy industrialist, offers Sofia a job in one of his gaming houses. He knows more about Sofia’s past than he has revealed. Brought up as part of a travelling fair, she’s an expert at counting cards and spotting cheats, and Vinsant puts her talents to good use. His demands on her grow until she finds herself with blood on her hands.
Set against the backdrop of the Suffragette protests, with industry changing the face of the city but disease still rampant, and poverty the greatest threat of all, every decision you make is life or death. Either yours or someone else’s. Read best-selling crime writer Helen Fields’ first explosive historical thriller.
Danni was a trainee corporate lawyer before she was forced to flee her life in London. Having escaped a controlling and abusive partner, she now finds herself hiding from another predator – her employer.
Post-Brexit, the U.K. oil industry is on its knees and desperate to turn a profit, but at what cost?
Many companies in Aberdeen have already been forced to sell out to the Russians, but when a prominent CEO is found dead, the number of mysterious deaths offshore have escalated and oil platforms are being targeted by terrorists. But who is actually calling the shots? There is more to these attacks than meets the eye…
As Danni draws ever closer to discovering the truth, she becomes embroiled in a web of secrets and deceit where doing the right thing could cost her life.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 