Continuing the unique, explosive Six Stories series, based around six podcasts comes a compulsive, taut and terrifying thriller, and a bleak and distressing look at modern society’s desperation for attention. Beast will unveil a darkness from which you may never return…
In the wake of the ‘Beast from the East ’ cold snap that ravaged the UK in 2018, a grisly discovery was made in a ruin on the Northumbrian coast. Twenty-four-year-old vlogger, Elizabeth Barton, had been barricaded inside what locals refer to as ‘The Vampire Tower’, where she was later found frozen to death. Three young men, part of an alleged cult, were convicted of this terrible crime, which they described as a ‘prank gone wrong’.
However, in the small town of Ergarth, questions have been raised about the nature of Elizabeth Barton’s death and whether the three convicted youths were even responsible. Elusive online journalist Scott King speaks to six witnesses people who knew both the victim and the three killers – to peer beneath the surface of the case.
He uncovers whispers of a shocking online craze that held the young of Ergarth in its thrall and drove them to escalate a series of pranks in the name of internet fame. He hears of an abattoir on the edge of town, which held more than simple slaughter behind its walls, and the tragic and chilling legend of the Ergarth Vampire…
PUBLICATION DATE: 6 FEBRUARY 2020 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Oliver Doliver (who is really just Oliver but he does like having both names) will be mostly Oliver in this story. Oliver is six years (and one month) old and has a friend who is a Dinosaur called Aya Buddn.
The ultimate book-lover’s fantasy, featuring a young scholar with the power to bring literary characters into the world, for fans of The Magicians, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and The Invisible Library.
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can’t quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob — a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life — hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life’s duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world… and for once, it isn’t Charley’s doing.
There’s someone else who shares his powers. It’s up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart the fabric of reality.
Paperback, 480 pages Published January 23rd 2020 by Orbit (first published July 23rd 2019)
ISBN:0356513777 ISBN13: 9780356513775
My Review
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review, and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for organising the blog tour. And finally, to the author, for this great read.
Got to be entirely honest, I haven’t finished reading this book yet, because I’ve been terribly ill with a cold. My energy levels have been used on my various support appointments, so I’ve only been reading in short spurts because I can’t focus enough to read for longer. That being said, what I have read, so far, has been very impressive. I will finish it soon, but for now I will review based on my experience so far. I’m halfway through, after some concerted reading this evening (Friday 7th February).
The characters of Rob and Charley Sutherland are brilliantly well-written, they are funny and so realistic in their frustrations with each other and life. Their conversations flow naturally. Millie is an absolute riot, very ‘Enid Blyton-ish’ with her ‘jolly good’s and brisk bossiness getting Heathcliff to behave.
The descriptions are very clear, almost poetic at times. I especially enjoyed the description of Charley’s house and the mysterious lane. I could see them, one a place I’d love to live, with books stacked everywhere, and the other like something from a Dickens tragedy, all cobbles and fog.
I love the idea of ‘reading characters out of the book’, and Charley’s need to experiment potentially getting him into trouble. I was intrigued by the idea that there’s a secret group of characters hiding behind the real world, having escaped from their books. And the mystery of who is reading out villains to attack Charley and Rob really got me. Who is the Summoner? Why does he have David Copperfield in a basement? What has Charlie’s first book of literary criticism got to do with everything? I need to know what happens next, who everyone is and why they’re doing what they are. I’m also scared for Charley and Rob. I also think Rob needs to tell Lydia everything, because that Eric is a scoundrel.
The way the characters change depending on who reads them, the description of the magic of ordinary reading, it all feels so good to read. That doesn’t make sense, sorry. I just utterly love Parry’s writing, it’s so richly descriptive. You don’t need to have read the books she draws on to understand the plot (or not so far at least) because Charley can’t help educating people.
I feel that, if I were well, I’d have curled up with this book and read it in a day or two. It’s not a small book, about 400 pages; even I would have needed a couple of days at my peak. In my current state, it’ll be a bit longer.
So, based on what I’ve read so far, I heartily recommend this book.
Oslo, 2018. Former long-distance runner Sonja Nordstrøm never shows at the launch of her controversial autobiography, Always Number One. When celebrity blogger Emma Ramm visits Nordstrøm’s home later that day, she finds the door unlocked and signs of a struggle inside. A bib with the number ‘one’ has been pinned to the TV. Police officer Alexander Blix is appointed to head up the missingpersons investigation, but he still bears the emotional scars of a hostage situation nineteen years earlier, when he killed the father of a five-year-old girl. Traces of Nordstrøm soon show up at different locations, but the appearance of the clues appear to be carefully calculated … evidence of a bigger picture that he’s just not seeing… Blix and Ramm soon join forces, determined to find and stop a merciless killer with a flair for the dramatic, and thirst for attention. Trouble is, he’s just got his first taste of it…
Whitechapel, 1888: London is bowed under Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror.
London 2015: actress Julianne Bell is abducted in a case similar to the terrible Tower Hamlets murders of some ten years earlier, and harking back to the Ripper killings of a century before.
Falkenberg, Sweden, 2015: a woman’s body is found mutilated in a forest, her wounds identical to those of the Tower Hamlets victims.
Profiler Emily Roy and true-crime writer Alexis Castells again find themselves drawn into an intriguing case, with personal links that turn their world upside down.
So, today I’m reviewing the second Emily Roy & Alexis Castells novel, and introducing Alienor, who I adored when I read Blood Song.
This book is as twisted as the first novel, Block 46, and just as tightly plotted. We learn more about Emily and Alexis, their backgrounds and neuroses. The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 were tenuously linked to the investigation as the background for the abusive family history of the murderers. The modern murders are confusing until you get to the revelations later on. The betrayal at the end was an unexpected twist but made the whole book make sense.
As with books 1 and 3, Gustawsson alternates between the investigation and the personal history of the murderers. I like the insight I got into the background to the crimes but was frustrated that I didn’t put the clues together. I’m not very good at that, clearly.
Another fantastic book from Gustawsson and Orenda.
In Falkenberg, Sweden, the mutilated body of talented young jewelry designer Linnea Blix is found in a snow-swept marina. In Hampstead Heath, London, the body of a young boy is discovered with similar wounds to Linnea’s. Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1944. In the midst of the hell of the Holocaust, Erich Hebner will do anything to see himself as a human again. Are the two murders the work of a serial killer, and how are they connected to shocking events at Buchenwald? Emily Roy, a profiler on loan to Scotland Yard from the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, joins up with Linnea’s friend, French true-crime writer Alexis Castells, to investigate the puzzling case. They travel between Sweden and London, and then deep into the past, as a startling and terrifying connection comes to light.
Paperback, 300 pages Published October 1st 2017 by Orenda Books (first published February 5th 2017) ISBN:1910633704 ISBN13: 9781910633700 Series Emily Roy & Alexis Castells #1
My Review
Last year I reviewed Blood Song, the third book in the Emily Roy & Alexis Castells series. It was so good that I ordered the first two and I’ve just read them so I’m reviewing both, but in separate posts. Today it is book 1, Block 46. Tomorrow I will review Keeper.
This was a rather fantastic novel, linking events in Buchenwald Concentration Camp (where the author’s grandfather had been a prisoner for being a French Communist?/Resistance member) and murders in modern Falkenburg, Sweden and London, UK.
The main characters are introduced, although it is clear they have a past relationship and complex personal histories. Their backgrounds and personalities are slowly revealed. Emily Roy could be an unsympathetic character but for the pieces of vulnerability Gustawsson reveals in the narrative. I wasn’t sure about Alexis Castells, she seemed very self-involved, although that changed as I read, again her past was revealed in little bites that made her more understandable. They are both very complex, slightly damaged characters.
The plot was sufficiently twisted that I didn’t see the truth coming, even though the clues were there, looking back. I enjoyed the way the life of the criminals and the investigation intertwined throughout the novel, shifting between perspectives and giving clues to the reader while still hiding the truth. It didn’t feel contrived that a writer and a profiler would know each other or become involved in the investigation (even if I personally have reservations about the scientific validity of profiling) or that they would both end up in Sweden.
It was fascinating to learn about the Buchenwald Camp via fiction, I didn’t know that the prisoners and International Resistance had cached weapons and fought the SS as the Allied Forces got closer to them. I wonder how many SS officers escaped by pretending to be prisoners? *shudder*
Not having read the original novel, because my French is not great and Swedish non-existent, I can’t comment on the translation’s fidelity, but Karen Sullivan, who runs Orenda Books, wouldn’t allow a dodgy translation so I’m going to run with it being accurate.
I highly recommend this book, and the series actually, Also, the publisher, who is an absolute delight.
Elianor Paine is a Magistrate of the Peace in the Kingdom of Trist and a republican secret agent. She has 6 days to subvert her investigation, supplant war-hero Lord Vile, then coerce his adult children to start a revolution, before her masters discover the truth and have her killed. Just how far is she willing to go? And can she change the world without changing herself?
England, 1655. Following the brutal civil wars the country swelters under a cloud of paranoia, suspicion and the burgeoning threat of rebellion. With the fragile peace being won by Cromwell’s ever-efficient Secretary of State John Thurloe, the exiled king Charles Stuart sends two spies on a dangerous mission to wrest back the initiative. These spies are different, however: they are women. Their task? To turn Parliament’s spymaster into their unwitting accomplice. Killing Beauties is a dark tale of subterfuge, jealousy and betrayal. It is sometimes said that women are written out of history, but often they are not yet written in. Killing Beauties is based on the true stories of two female spies from the 1650s and gives them the voice that only fiction can. Pete Langman.Continue reading “Review: Killing Beauties, by Pete Langman”
In a post-apocalyptic world the human race has evolved beyond us through genetic engineering – and we’ve been left behind to make amends for the damage inflicted on the earth.
The reversal of the extinction of long lost animals is key to our reparations and all of these are housed in the Museum of Evolution – along with another species of human that hasn’t existed for 30,000 years.
Elise belongs to the lowest order of humans, the Sapiens. She lives in an ostracised community of ecological houses, built to blend with an idyllic landscape. Deciding to widen her stagnating life in the manufacturing base, she takes a chance opportunity to become a Companion to a previously extinct species of human.
But Elise has secrets of her own that threaten to be exposed now that she is away from the safety of her home. And while living in the museum, Elise realises that little separates her from the other exhibits…
Just had my post delivered. It was all books for blog tours. I’ll be reviewing Bella by R. M. Francis later this month, and a month later The Coronation by Justin Newland.
Thanks to the authors, publishers and blog tour organiser, Love Books Tours.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 