John Murray (Publishers)
2013
It’s possible I was bawling just a little when I finished this book.
Category Archives: Book Reviews
Review: Bad Santas and other creepy Christmas characters, by Paul Hawkins
My Midwinter reading
I saw a tweet from Simon and Schuster yesterday afternoon asking for reviewers. The book in question is ‘Bad Santas’ by Paul Hawkins. It arrived this afternoon.
And my next review will be
‘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”
Review: ‘Slavery’s Exiles; The story of the American Maroons’ by Sylviane A Diouf
New York University Press
11th February 2014
Written by a scholar of the African diaspora, Slavery’s Exiles discusses the existence or otherwise of marronage among North American slaves. The maroons of Jamaica and Suriname have been extensively studied while evidence for maroons in the US (and the North American colonies before the War of Independence) is limited. This book looks at the evidence provided not only by former slaves interviewed in the early twentieth century, but at newspaper reports, court reports and legislation from the seventeenth century onwards.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Slavery’s Exiles; The story of the American Maroons’ by Sylviane A Diouf”
Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
Transworld Publishers
2013-11-07
In the 40th Discworld novel it’s steam engine time.
Review: 100 Poems Old and New by Rudyard Kipling
Selected and Edited by Thomas Pinney
Cambridge University Press
11 December 2013
This is a collection of mostly unfamiliar poems by Rudyard Kipling, culled from a variety of sources.
Continue reading “Review: 100 Poems Old and New by Rudyard Kipling”
Two book reviews
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.
Review: A Study in Darkness Book 2 of The Baskerville Affair by Emma Jane Holloway
29th October 2013
Del Ray
- ISBN 9780345537195
- $7.99
- Mass Market Paperback
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.
Review: ‘When Hollywood was Right: How movie stars, studio moguls and big business remade American politics’ by Donald T Critchlow
5th November 2013
Cambridge University Press
Donald Critchlow describes the history of Hollywood from a political perspective, a conservative Republican one. Hollywood hasn’t always been a liberal place; in the first half of the twentieth century the Republican party was very strong among actors and studio bosses. This is the story of the vacitudes of fate that took the Hollywood Right from repeated decline to success between the 30’s and 80’s. The political careers of key players such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Cecil B DeMille, Barry Goldwater, and supporters like John Wayne and Hedda Hopper are interwoven in this account pf the changing fortunes of the Republican party not just in Hollywood, but in California as a whole.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 