Everything Is Better With Dragons
Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon
Published By: Pen & Sword History
Published: 3rd October 2017
ISBN: 9781473862821
Format: Paperback
Price: £12.99
Blurb
You wont be familiar with every one of the huge array of women featured in these pages, but all, familiar or not, leave unanswered questions behind them. The range is extensive, as was the research, with its insight into the lives and minds of women in different centuries, different countries, with diverse cultures and backgrounds, from the poverty stricken to royalty. Mistresses, murderers, smugglers, pirates, prostitutes and fanatics with hearts and souls that feature every shade of black (and grey!). From Cleopatra to Ruth Ellis, from Boudicca to Bonnie Parker, from Lady Caroline Lamb to Moll Cutpurse, from Jezebel to Ava Gardner.
Less familiar names include Mary Jeffries, the Victorian brothel-keeper, Belle Starr, the American gambler and horse thief, La Voisin, the seventeenth-century Queen of all Witches in France but these are random names, to illustrate the variety of the content in store for all those interested in women who defy law and order, for whatever reason.
The risque, the adventurous and the outrageous, the downright nasty and the downright desperate all human (female!) life is here. From the lower strata of society to the aristocracy, class is not a common denominator. Wicked? Misunderstood? Naive? Foolish? Predatory? Manipulative? Or just out of their time? Read and decide.
I haven’t been reviewing many books outside of my scheduled reviews this month, but yesterday a package of books arrived from Moon Books. The first of those that I’ve chosen to review is this book, since today is official publication day.
Continue reading “Bonus review #2: ‘Odin: Meeting the Norse Allfather’, by Morgan Daimler”
Published By: Clink Street Publishing
Publication Date: 2nd March 2017
I.S.B.N.: 978-1911525271
Format: Paperback
Price: £9.99
Blurb
Twelve-year-old Charlie Watkins could have inherited his dad’s massive intellect.
He got his massive feet instead.Perhaps if Charlie had that intellect he might have been able to figure out why so many men in suits were suddenly following him or where his dad hid the Cubit – a mythical object that men have sworn to protect and even more have died trying to possess – before his so-called accident.
If starting yet another new school wasn’t bad enough, Charlie meets Mr Leopold, a disfigured, mind-reading lunatic and discovers that he alone must find the Cubit if he is to save his dad. The Brotherhood, however, have other ideas. Led by the ruthless Draganovic, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. With the help of Mr Leopold and fellow new boy Elvis, Charlie sets out on The Cubit Quest.
Hunting for the Cubit, playing football, lessons with the dreaded Funeral Face and unsuccessfully avoiding school bully Grimshaw by day, Charlie finds his nights no less complicated. Stalked in his dreams, he’s soon immersed in a world of power struggles, battling dragons and duels to the death. With the Brotherhood hot on his heels and as the bullets begin to fly, there are no guarantees that Charlie, or anyone else, will make it to the end in one piece.
Purchase from Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N12WKPG/
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Cubit Quest’, by Trevor Leck”
Published By: Clink Street Publishing
Publication Date: 4th April 2017
I.S.B.N.: 978-1911525097
Format: Paperback
Price: £8.99
Blurb
Retreating from an airborne virus with a uniquely unsettling symptom, property developer Jason escapes London for his country estate, where he is forced to negotiate a new way of living with an assortment of fellow survivors.
Far in the future, an isolated community of descendants continue to farm this same estate. Among their most treasured possessions are a few books, including a copy of Jane Eyre, from which they have constructed their hierarchies, rituals and beliefs. When 15-year-old Agnes begins to record the events of her life, she has no idea what consequences will follow. Locked away for her transgressions, she escapes to the urban ruins and a kind of freedom, but must decide where her future lies.
These two stories interweave, illuminating each other in unexpected ways and offering long vistas of loss, regeneration and wonder.
The Book of Air is a story of survival, the shaping of memory and the enduring impulse to find meaning in a turbulent world.
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Book of Air’, by Joe Treasure”
Published By: Clink Street Publishing
Publication Date: 4th April 2017
I.S.B.N.: 978-1911110873
Format: Paperback
Price: £8.99
Blurb
Patrick Phelan is an ageing artist who has never made it big but who somehow manages to live on air in a North London suburb.
When not running art classes for amateurs, Patrick wrestles in the shed at the bottom of his garden with his life’s work: a series of visionary canvases of The Seven Seals.
When his wheeler-dealer son Marty turns up with a commission from a rich client for some copies of paintings by modern masters, Phelan reluctantly agrees; it means money for his ex-wife Moira. However the deal with Marty is, typically, not what it seems.
What follows is a complex chain of events involving fakery, fraud, kidnapping, murder, the Russian Mafia and a cast of dubious art world characters. A contemporary spin on Joyce Cary’s classic satire The Horse’s Mouth, The Horse’s Arse by Laura Gascoigne is a crime thriller-cum-comic-fable that poses the serious question: where does art go from here?
Purchase from Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horses-Arse-Laura-Gascoigne-ebook/dp/B01MUZXN8G/
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Horse’s Arse’, by Laura Gascoigne”
Published By: Orenda
Publication Date: 28th February 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781912374038
Format: Paperback
Price: £8.99
Blurb
As Montrealer Catherine Day sets foot in a remote fishing village and starts asking around about her birth mother, the body of a woman dredges up in a fisherman’s nets. Not just any woman, though: Marie Garant, an elusive, nomadic sailor and unbridled beauty who once tied many a man’s heart in knots. Detective Sergeant Joaquin Morales, newly drafted to the area from the suburbs of Montreal, barely has time to unpack his suitcase before he’s thrown into the deep end of the investigation. On Quebec’s outlying Gaspe Peninsula, the truth can be slippery, especially down on the fishermen’s wharves.
Published By: BookBaby
Publication Date: 1st January 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781543919370
Format: Paperback
Price: £11.62
Blurb
Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind is a personal memoir by a psychiatrist who gradually discovers from his patient’s descriptions of their mental illnesses that human motivations have been evolved over millions of years for productive engagement rather than competitive fitness. A new uplifting and spiritual view of human nature emerges that is not only consistent with the science of human evolution, but also opens up a simple explanation for such ancient mysteries as self-awareness, reflective thought, and the vast complexity of language.
All other books about the evolution of emotion approach it from the “outside” as an object; this book is about the biological evolution of the “inside” experience of emotion-and-motivation, which can only be known empathetically.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind’, by John V. Wylie, M.D.”
Published by: Doubleday UK
Publication Date: 13th October 2011
Format: Hardback
I.S.B.N.: 9780385619264
Price: £18.99 (And yes, I did pay that much, I used to get my Discworlds as soon as I could)
Blurb
According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.
And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.
He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.
They say that in the end all sins are forgiven.
But not quite all…
Continue reading “Bonus Review #1: ‘Snuff’, by Sir Terry Pratchett GNU”
Blurb
“You need a plan B,” said Alicia’s mother when at five years old she told her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Thirty odd years later, Alicia is on plan D: sharing a flat, no tangible savings, and working for hateful Julia, whose sole purpose in life is to make her existence utterly miserable. Good thing she has Oscar and the girls to make the long hours at work bearable. But when a series of events tears the close-knit group apart, putting friendships and motives under suspicion, will Alicia be able to restore balance and set things right? More importantly, will she ever be able to upgrade her life to at least plan C?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Author of I stand corrected, When I grow up…, Rewind, Balou uncensored, Bienvenidos a gatos anónimos, Pasarse cuatro Pueblos and Sesenta segundos dan para mucho, Patricia Asedegbega Nieto was born to a Spanish mother and a Nigerian father in Madrid. As a child, she relocated with her family to Nigeria and later returned to Spain, where she acquired her BSc and master´s degree. She is currently living near Madrid with her family and her very stubborn cat, Merlin Mojito.
http://www.patriciascorner.co.uk/
Twitter @Patricias_Place
Continue reading “Review: ‘When I Grow Up’, by Patricia Asedegbega”
Everything Is Better With Dragons 