Category Archives: Reviews

Review: ‘Dead Ever After’ by Charlaine Harris

 

2013

Gollancz

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The final adventure of Sookie Stackhouse begins the day after the penultimate novel ended: Sam the Shapeshifter lived and Eric the Vampire is not happy that Sookie used the fairy gift from her great-grandfather to bring Sam back and not to get him out of a sticky political situation. Everyone is upset. And then an old enemy comes back in to Sookie’s life, an instrument of unknown enemies. When she is murdered the police would quite like it if Sookie were the murderer. It all gets very stressful for Sookie as more enemies come out of the woodwork and Eric divorces her. Sam is distant and confusing, Bill a little too friendly.

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Review: ‘My Brief History’ by Stephen Hawking

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10th September 2013

Bantam

Stephen Hawking has written several popular science books that have been incredibly well received. And now he has written his own story. I have read an uncorrected e-book and am now able to review it.

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Review: ‘Happy women live better’ by Valorie Burton

 

2013

Harvest House Publishers

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America’s ‘Happiness Queen’ Valorie Burton wants to start a conversation between women about why they aren’t happy and provides thirteen ‘happiness triggers’. Ms Burton is a professional counsellor I understand, from this book, and has made a career of helping others find happiness; so just the person to write this sort of book. I have a review copy, which is incomplete, so I shall confine my comments to structure and available content. I would have liked to have seen the contents of the projected appendices and conclusion; I’m sure they would have been very interesting.

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Review: ‘Did I Say That Out Loud? Conversations About Life’ By Kelly McDermott Harman

Wegost Press

2013

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This e-book is 87% true, 13% blarney, according to the author; a collection of humorous personal anecdotes. I couldn’t help but laugh as Kelly described conversations with her family and friends, including the one with her sister about getting concussion from a drunk man three weeks before a further head injury in a car accident, or the time she had to help said sister explain to their parents why she had left her husband, the conversation she had with her family paediatrician about her sons being serial killers in training (creative cricket death was involved), or her mother’s story about quilt shops and concealed weapons permits.

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Review:’Spirit’ – the new album from Reckless Love

http://open.spotify.com/track/7vKZIz31BW6IMIDcLjUHUJ

I reviewed this album (badly) last Monday, the UK release day. Now that I’m feeling marginally better (I haven’t died from this cold yet) and have had a chance to listen to the album a few (dozen) times, I feel more capable of reviewing it properly and fairly.
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Avenged Sevenfold ‘Hail to the King’

Last evening my brother-in-law asked whether I’d heard the new Avenged Sevenfold album. When I told him I hadn’t had a chance yet he recommended I listen to it when I had the chance. I had that chance this morning (Spotify/internet connection – same old story). My bro-in-law described some of the songs as being a bit like Metallica, some a bit like Iron Maiden. He also thought the title track ‘Hail to the King’ was the weakest of the lot. I had heard ‘Hail to the King’ on Kerrang! and was quite impressed by it. If it was the weakest, I said, then the rest must be quite something.

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Review – ‘The Black Lion: Satan’s Kingdom’ by Anthony Karakai

 

2013

A modern spy thriller set in Hungary

Jackson is one of an elite covert force, ‘The Black Lions’, recruited from the CIA and ready to deal out violent justice. His team mates are a mixed bag of ex-security services from around the world.

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Review: ‘Improbable Women’ by William Woods Cotterman

 

2013

Syracuse University Press

Augusta Zenobia ruled Palmyra in the mid to late third century and made a terrible nuisance of herself to the Roman Empire. Eventually she lost her fight and after being taken to Rome a prisoner disappeared in to obscurity. Sixteen hundred years or so later the first of five remarkable English women explored the Middle East inspired by her and the romance of the east.

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Review: ‘Affliction’ by Laurell K. Hamilton

 

2013

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In the twenty-first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel, our heroine finds herself in an unusual situation: meeting her in-laws in Boulder. Unfortunately she’s meeting Micah’s parents because his Dad is dying from a zombie bite that’s rotting faster than the doctors can cut it away.

Probably not the best time for a family reunion?

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