2013
A YA retelling of the fairytale ‘The Beauty and The Beast’
Category Archives: Reviews
Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
I celebrated New Year’s Eve by going to the cinema with my two best friends this afternoon. We had been looking forward to seeing ‘The Desolation of Smaug’ since seeing the first Hobbit film last year.
The journey of Bilbo and his dwarven companions continues as they try to escape the orcs. They take refuge in the house is Beorn the skinshifter, who offers them limited assistance. He dislikes dwarves, but hates orcs more.
A journey through Mirkwood goes badly wrong but Bilbo, and a dozen barrels come to their rescue. Kili makes a conquest if a romantic nature. Later, they make their way to Laketown, and from there their ultimate goal, Erebor – The Lonely Mountain – is only a stones throw, or a dragon’s wingflap, away.
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Review: The Best British Fantasy 2013
Editor: Steve Haynes
Salt Publishing
2013
Contributors:
Jon Wallace Lavie Tidhar Joseph D’Lacey
E. J. Swift Carole Johnstone Cheryl Moore
Steph Swainston Kim Larkin-Smith Mark Morris
Cate Gardner Sam Stone Alison Littlewood
Simon Kurt Unsworth Lisa Tuttle Simon Bestwick
Tyler Keevil Adam L. G. Nevil
Review: ‘What should we tell our daughters? The pleasures and pressures of growing up female’ by Melissa Benn
John Murray (Publishers)
2013
It’s possible I was bawling just a little when I finished this book.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 