Category Archives: Fiction

Review: ‘The Private Life of Mrs Sharma’ by Ratika Kapur

 

Renuka Sharma is a dutiful wife, mother, and daughter-in-law holding the fort in a modest rental in Delhi while her husband tries to rack up savings in Dubai. Working as a receptionist and committed to finding a place for her family in the New Indian Dream of air-conditioned malls and high paid jobs at multi-nationals, life is going as planned until the day she strikes up a conversation with an uncommonly self-possessed stranger at a Metro station. Because while Mrs Sharma may espouse traditional values, India is changing all around her, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she came out of her shell a little, would it?

With equal doses of humour and pathos, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a sharp-eyed examination of the clashing of tradition and modernity, from a dramatic new voice in Indian fiction

ISBN: 9781408873649
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Price: £12.99

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Review: ‘Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel’ by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

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Published by: Little, Brown Book Group UK
Publication Date: 20th October 2015   
Edition: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780356504834
Price: £16.99

Blurb

Night Vale is a small desert town where all the conspiracy theories you’ve ever heard are actually true. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked ‘KING CITY’ by a mysterious man in a tan jacket. She can’t seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City before she herself unravels.

Diane Crayton’s son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane’s started to see her son’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: ‘KING CITY’. It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures . . . if they can ever find it.

My Review

I love the Night Vale podcasts; the utter surrealism of the plot is perfect listening. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work so well in the extended format of a novel. While the plot has some merit, the writing is laboured and after a couple of chapters I found it dull.

I’m disappointed but have to give this one a 2/5

Thoughts on ‘Suffragette’

Suffragette: an insulting diminutive coined in 1905 by the Daily Mail for women involved in the suffrage movement. Adopted by the WSPU as a badge of honour.
I went to see the new film about the Suffragettes on Thursday afternoon with my oldest friend. I really enjoyed the film, it was inspiring.

[There will be spoilers in this post, skip the first few paragraphs if you don’t want to know what happens. You have been warned, don’t complain.]

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Review: ‘The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pub Date Aug 20, 2015   
Edition: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781473619791
Price: £18.99Continue reading “Review: ‘The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers”

Review: The Retribution by Val McDermid

On Monday I went to the monthly reading group meeting at my local library. The book we were discussing, The Retribution by Val MaDermid was very popular with our small group. I had never read any if her books until yesterday morning.

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Review: Stormbringer by Alis Franklin

Stormbringer
Book 2 of the Wyrd

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Alis Franklin

Published by: Random House Publishing Group – Hydra
Edition: Ebook
ISBN: 9780553394627
Price: $2.99 (USD)
Publication Date: 21st July, 2015

Blurb
Ragnarok—aka the end of the world—was supposed to doom the gods as well. Instead, it was a cosmic rebooting. Now low-level IT tech and comic-book geek Sigmund Sussman finds himself an avatar of a Norse goddess. His boyfriend, the wealthy entrepreneur Lain Laufeyjarson, is channeling none other than Loki, the trickster god. His best friends, Em and Wayne, harbor the spirits of slain Valkyries. Cool, right?

The problem is, the gods who survived the apocalypse are still around—and they don’t exactly make a great welcoming committee. The children of Thor are hellbent on reclaiming their scattered birthright: the gloves, belt, and hammer of the Thunder God. Meanwhile, the dwarves are scheming, the giants are pissed, and the goddess of the dead is demanding sanctuary for herself and her entire realm.

Caught in the coils of the Wyrd, the ancient force that governs gods and mortals alike, Sigmund and his crew are suddenly facing a second Ragnarok that threatens to finish what the first one started. And all that stands in the way are four nerds bound by courage, love, divine powers, and an encyclopedic knowledge of gaming lore.

MY REVIEW

I giggled so much reading this book. I think I enjoyed it more than the first one, Liesmith, because now that we know the characters their stories have a chance to blossom.

I love the characters of Lain, Sig, Em and Wayne. Hel and her siblings are very sympathetically written, and the younger gods are such teenage brats! If their actions weren’t so awful then it’d be funny.
The book could do with an editor, there were minor spelling and grammar errors that look like a slip of the keyboard, but nothing to distract from the story.

Very enjoyable second book.

4/5

May Reviews, part one

Hey, I’ve had a not so great few weeks, and have got behind with my reviews (sorry!) but to make up for it, here’s four book reviews.

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