Fiction – Page 33 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: ‘A Shadow on the Lens’, by Sam Hurcom #CompulsiveReaders #BlogTour

The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look I saw a flicker of movement from across the street. I felt unseen eyes peer at me.
He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder.
Someone had been watching us.
1904. Thomas Bexley, one of the first forensic photographers, is called to the sleepy and remote Welsh village of Dinas Powys, several miles down the coast from the thriving port of Cardiff. A young girl by the name of Betsan Tilny has been found murdered in the woodland – her body bound and horribly burnt. But the crime scene appears to have been staged, and worse still: the locals are reluctant to help.

As the strange case unfolds, Thomas senses a growing presence watching him, and try as he may, the villagers seem intent on keeping their secret. Then one night, in the grip of a fever, he develops the photographic plates from the crime scene in a makeshift darkroom in the cellar of his lodgings. There, he finds a face dimly visible in the photographs; a face hovering around the body of the dead girl – the face of Betsan Tilny.

Review: ‘Broad Plain Darkening’, by Clare Rhoden

Broad Plain Darkening – Chronicles of the Pale #2
The safe world of the Pale is under threat.
Inside the policosmos, the new Regent Adaeze strives for dominance over the all-powerful Senior Forecaster, but the Pale’s humachine citizens are unaware that their city is close to collapse.
Outside on Broad Plain, the exiled human Hector undertakes a dangerous trek to find a safe haven for the orphaned twins.
How can anyone survive as their world shifts underneath them?

Purchase Link – viewbook.at/clarerhodenbroadplain

Review: ‘The Pale’, by Clare Rhoden

The Outside can be a dangerous place.
But so can the inside.
It’s been years since the original cataclysm, but life has been structured, peaceful, and most of all uneventful in the Pale. The humachine citizens welcome the order provided by their ruler, the baleful Regent.
However, when one of their own rescues a human boy, Hector, from ravenous ferals on the Outside, their careful systems are turned upside down.
As Hector grows more and more human-strange, the citizens of the Pale grow uneasy.
What will happen when the Outside tries to get in?

Purchase Link – viewbook.at/clarerhodenthepale

Review: ‘Lost Solace’, by Karl Drinkwater

Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board – the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors.

Opal is on a mission. She’s been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship.

Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space.

The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost … forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there’s no time for indecision.

Opal gears up to board it. She’s just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa’s intelligence – and an armoured spacesuit – Opal may stand a chance.

Review: ‘The Old Dragon’s Head’, by Justin Newland

Blurb
Constructed of stone and packed earth, the Great Wall of 10,000 li protects China’s northern borders from the threat of Mongol incursion. The wall is also home to a supernatural beast: the Old Dragon. The Old Dragon’s Head is the most easterly point of the wall, where it finally meets the sea.
In every era, a Dragon Master is born. Endowed with the powers of Heaven, only he can summon the Old Dragon so long as he possess the dragon pearl.
It’s the year 1400, and neither the Old Dragon, the dragon pearl, nor the Dragon Master, has been seen for twenty years. Bolin, a young man working on the Old Dragon’s Head, suffers visions of ghosts. Folk believe he has yin-yang eyes and other paranormal gifts.When Bolin’s fief lord, the Prince of Yan, rebels against his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor, a bitter war of succession ensues in which the Mongols hold the balance of power. While the victor might win the battle on earth, China’s Dragon Throne can only be earned with a Mandate from Heaven – and the support of the Old Dragon.
Bolin embarks on a journey of self-discovery, mirroring Old China’s endeavour to come of age. When Bolin accepts his destiny as the Dragon Master, Heaven sends a third coming of age – for humanity itself. But are any of them ready for what is rising in the east?

Buy Link

https://amzn.to/2XjoYQz

Review: ‘The Lost Daughter’, by Sylvia Broady

Hull, 1930. A terrified woman runs through the dark, rain-lashed streets pursued by a man, desperate to reach the sanctuary of the local police station. Alice Goddard runs with one thing in her mind: her daughter. In her panic she is hit by a car at speed and rushed to hospital. When she awakes, she has no memory of who she is, but at night she dreams of being hunted by a man, and of a little girl.
As the weeks pass and her memories gradually resurface, Alice anxiously searches for her daughter, but no one is forthcoming about the girl’s whereabouts – even her own mother is evasive. Penniless and homeless, Alice must begin again and rebuild her life, never giving up hope that one day she will be reunited with her lost daughter

Purchase Links

From 22^nd – 29^th August, The Lost Daughter will be at the bargain price of 99p.

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Daughter-Sylvia-Broady-ebook/dp/B07F3KPN1J

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Daughter-Sylvia-Broady-ebook/dp/B07F3KPN1J

Review: ‘They Don’t Make Plus Size Spacesuits’, by Ali Thompson

“They don’t make plus size spacesuits” is a sci-fi short story collection, featuring an introductory essay. It is written by long-time fat activist, Ali Thompson of Ok2BeFat.
This book is a incandescent cry from the heart, a radical turn away from utopian daydreaming of future body perfection to center a fat perspective instead.
Ali invites people to experience a fictional version of a few of the many ways that fatphobia can manifest in a life. The ways that the people closest to fat people can subject them to tiny betrayals on a near constant basis. The disdain that piles up over the years, until it all becomes too large to bear.
And while some of the fatphobic tech in these stories may seem outrageous and downright unbelievable, it is all based on extrapolations of so-called “advances” by the diet industry, as they search for ever more efficient ways to starve people.
The modern day worship of Health promises a future peopled only by the thin, a world where the War on Fatness is won and only visually acceptable bodies remain.
What will that future mean for the fat people who will inevitably still continue to exist?
Nothing good.

My Review

This book contains an essay and four short stories on the subject of being fat. Sci fi has a bit of a fatphobia problem, like the world in general. Ali Thompson writes short powerful stories that takes the current obsession with forcing everyone into a single acceptable body type to logical conclusions. They are painful to read but a necessary pain if we are to understand the daftness of the idea that thin = healthy.

Highly recommended, especially to anyone who thinks telling a child they’re fat is a good idea.

Review: ‘The Perfect Wife’, by JP Delaney

Details here

Abbie wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. The man by her side explains that he’s her husband. He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative startups. He tells Abbie she’s a gifted artist, a doting mother, and the love of his life.

Five years ago, she suffered a terrible accident. Her return from the abyss is a miracle of science, a breakthrough that has taken him half a decade to achieve.

But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband’s motives – and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together for ever? And what really happened to her, half a decade ago?

Published by: Quercus Fiction

Publication Date: 8th August 2019

Format: Hardback

I. S. B. N.: 9781786488527

I got this book from Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. On the Friday there was a pop-up Crime Files event where this book was given out.

I hadn’t planned to read or review it yet, but something was brought to my attention by the delightful @autiedragon on Twitter, who was reading an eARC and came across something that they felt had to be highlighted. Before saying anything I wanted to read the book and form my own opinion. I have, and I fully support @autiedragon’s response.

You will see what I mean when I get in to the review. As regular readers know, I don’t normally review books I don’t like but this is important to me. I need to warn Autistic fans of thrillers, psychological suspense novels etc. about the content.

There will be spoilers in this review. If you don’t want to know what happens, there are other reviews available elsewhere.

Continue reading “Review: ‘The Perfect Wife’, by JP Delaney”

Rosie Reviews the ‘Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year 2019’ Shortlist books

Hola, peeps, dear readers, etc. I’m awa’ on my big adventures – heading to Harrogate (pronounced ‘Arragut, except for by posh people who pronounce it ‘harrow gayte’) for a long weekend of crime writing delights. The fun starts this evening at the Crime Novel of the Year Awards and in preparation (otherwise known as ‘so I don’t look like an illiterate twerp’) I have been reading the books on the shortlist. I couldn’t decide which order to read them in so I went for alphabetical by author’s surname.

Review: ‘A Killing Sin’, by K.H. Irvine #LoveBooksTour

Blurb
Would you surrender your secrets to save a life?
London. It could be tomorrow. Amala Hackeem, lapsed Muslim tech entrepreneur and controversial comedian, dons a burqa and heads to the women’s group at the Tower Hamlets sharia community. What is she doing there?
Ella Russell, a struggling journalist leaves home in pursuit of the story of her life. Desperate for the truth, she is about to learn the true cost of the war on terror.
Millie Stephenson, a university professor and expert in radicalisation arrives at Downing Street to brief the Prime Minister and home secretary. Nervous and excited she finds herself at the centre of a nation taken hostage. And then it gets personal.
Friends since university, by the end of the day the lives of all three women are changed forever. They will discover if friendship truly can survive secrets and fear.