Reviews – Page 66 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: ‘When the Waters Recede’, by Graham Smith

Published By: Caffeine Nights Publishing
Publication Date: 31st May 2018
Format: Paperback
I.S.B.N.: 978-1910720967
Price: £8.49

Blurb

When a car is pulled from raging floodwaters with a dead man in the front and the decapitated body of an evil woman in the boot, Cumbria’s Major Crimes Team are handed the investigation.

The woman is soon recognised, but the man cannot be identified and this leads the team and their former leader, Harry Evans, into areas none of them want to visit.

Before they know it, they’re dealing with protection scams and looking for answers to questions they didn’t know needed to be asked.

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Bonus Review #6: ‘The Fact of a Body’, by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Whatever happened in the past, the story wrote right over it. The story became the truth. What you see in Ricky killing Jeremy, I have come to believe , depends as much on who you are and the life you’ve had as on what he did. But the legal narrative erases that step. It erases where it came from.

Page 310/91%

Published by: Pan Macmillan

Publication Date: 3rd May 2018

Format: ebook

I.S.B.N.: 9781509805648

Price: £8.99

Blurb

When law student Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is asked to work on a death-row hearing for convicted murderer and child molester Ricky Langley, she finds herself thrust into the tangled story of his childhood. As she digs deeper and deeper into the case she realizes that, despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar. The Fact of a Body is both an enthralling memoir and a groundbreaking, heart-stopping investigation into how the law is personal, composed of individual stories, and proof that arriving at the truth is more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.

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Bonus Review #5: ‘Redemption’, by Jussi Adler-Olsen

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This edition

Published By: Penguin

Publication Date: 18th July 2013

I.S.B.N.: 9780141399997

Format: Paperback

Originally published in Danish as

Flaskepost fra P, (1st January 2009)

Blurb

Detective Carl Mørck holds in his hands a bottle that contains old and decayed message, written in blood. It is a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why weren’t they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive?

Carl’s investigation will force him to cross paths with a woman stuck in a desperate marriage- her husband refuses to tell her where he goes, what he does, how long he will be away. For days on end she waits, and when he returns she must endure his wants, his moods, his threats. But enough is enough. She will find out the truth, no matter the cost to her husband—or to herself.

Carl and his colleagues Assad and Rose must use all of their resources to uncover the horrifying truth in this heart-pounding Nordic thriller from the #1 international bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen

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Bonus Review #4: ‘Children of Time’, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Published by: Pan Macmillan

Publication Date: 21st April 2016 (First published June 2015)

I.S.B.N.: 9781447273301

Format: Paperback

Price: 8.99

Blurb

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

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Alex’s Review: ‘The Planetsider’, by G.J. Ogden

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Published By: CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Publication Date: 18th February 2018

I.S.B.N.: 978-1983716720

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Available from Amazon

Blurb

Several generations after ‘The Fall’, the scattered clusters of civilisation that grew in its wake live in ignorance of the past. No-one wants to know what caused such devastation or why. No-one, except Ethan. Ethan used to believe in the guardians; mysterious lights in the sky that, according to folklore, protect the survivors, so long as you believe in them. But the death of his parents shattered his faith and forged within him a hunger to know more. One night, a light grows brighter in the sky and crashes to the planet’s surface. Ethan then embarks on a heartbreaking journey in which harrowing discoveries unveil the secrets of the past, and place him at the centre of a deadly conflict. Powerful, thought-provoking and emotionally absorbing, The Planetsider is a gripping, post-apocalyptic thriller that will keep you hooked until the very end.

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May Bonus Review #2

Mary Queen of Scotsâ Downfall

Published By: Pen and Sword Books

Publication Date: 6th November 2017

Format: Hardback

I.S.B.N.: 9781473893313

Price: £25.00

Blurb

In the early hours of 10 February 1567 a large explosion ripped through the Old Provost’s lodgings at Kirk o’ Field, Edinburgh, where Mary Queen of Scotland’s consort, Henry Lord Darnley, was staying. Darnley’s body was found with that of his valet in a neighbouring garden the next morning. The Queen’s husband had been suffocated and the ramifications for Mary and Scottish history would be far-reaching.

Lord Darnley cuts an infamous figure in Scottish and Tudor history. In life he proved a controversial character, and his murder at Kirk o’ Field in 1567 remains one of British history’s great, unsolved mysteries – establishing whether Mary was implicated has taxed historians ever since.

In this engaging and well-researched biography, Robert Stedall re-examines Darnley’s life and his murder. It is not to be missed; his investigation brings new light and compelling conclusions to a story surrounded by political betrayal, murder, falsified evidence and conspiracy.

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May Bonus Review #1

8733324 Published by: Icon Books UK

Publication Date: 1st February 2011 (First published 1st February 2005)

I.S.B.N.: 9781848312203

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Blurb

A vehement attack on the latest pseudo-scientific claims about the differences between the sexes. Sex discrimination is supposedly a distant memory. Yet popular books, magazines and even scientific articles increasingly defend inequalities by citing immutable biological differences between the male and female brain. That’s the reason, we’re told, that there are so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room – different brains are just better suited to different things. Drawing on the latest research in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and social psychology, Delusions of Gender powerfully rebuts these claims, showing how old myths, dressed up in new scientific finery, are helping perpetuate the sexist status quo. Cordelia Fine, ‘a cognitive neuroscientist with a sharp sense of humour and an intelligent sense of reality’ (The Times) reveals the mind’s remarkable plasticity, shows how profoundly culture influences the way we think about ourselves and, ultimately, exposes just how much of what we consider ‘hardwired’ is actually malleable.

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Review schedule – May to September 2018

Hola peeps, it’s the end of April and this time for me to write the reviewing schedule for May. Except I’m starting my dissertation in a few days, so reviewing is taking a back seat. That doesn’t mean there won’t be reviews. Even I need a break from writing occasionally.

Which reminds me, Charley’s War is on to chapter 30 and is only half done. I’ll get there eventually.

So, what have I got booked in for the next few months?

Edit: It’s npw mid-July and some significant progress has been made with the dissertation so I’ve added some reviews to the schedule.

May

6th
- The Planetsider, by GJ Ogden
- Alex is reviewing this one. since it’s a YA novel.

June

1st
- When The Water’s Recede, by Graham Smith
- Crime novel
20th
- Tubing, by K.A. McKeagney
- Crime thriller

July

13th
- The London Mysteries, books 1 & 2, by Alice Castle
- Cosy crime set in modern London
19th
- Wrecker, by Noel O’Reilly
- Historical fiction set in Cornwall
27th
- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, by Gina Kirkham
- Humour

August

3rd
- Duck Egg Blues, by Martin Ungless
- Crime/sci-fi
8th
- The Cheesemaker’s House, by Jane Cable
- This is to celebrate the novel’s fifth birthday
- Mystery/women’s fiction (maybe, I’m not too sure)
18th
- Implant, by Ray Clark
- Crime
23rd
- Love you Stationary
- A children’s picture book
24th
- Tommy Twigtree
- Also a picture book

There will also be a couple of promo posts this month:
12th
- Q&A about ‘The Bespokest Society Guide To London’
14th
- Promo post for ‘The Camberwell Calamity’, by Alice Castle
- The London Mysteries #3 – Beth’s adventures continue…

September – Nothing booked in so far.

It’s a bit spartan, I know and mostly crime, but I need to focus on my writing for a few months. As I said, there will be other, unscheduled reviews, because I have a pile of books waiting to be read.

Review: ‘Under The Woods’, by KA Richardson

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Published by: Bloodhound Books

Publication Date: 27th April 2018

I.S.B.N.: 9781912604241

Format: Paperback

Price:

Blurb

When a homeless woman, Cheryl Whiffen, hears voices in her head telling her to do bad things, she can’t help but obey.

But when Cheryl becomes the victim of a serial killer who is collecting angels, this time the voices can’t help her. She is deemed not worthy of being an angel and the killer has to find another way to dispose of her body.

TJ Tulley has connections in the police force – her brother Jacob is a digital forensic analyst and her soon to be sister-in-law is a CSI. She knows many of their colleagues so when someone breaks into her house at the riding stables she owns, it’s not a surprise when the police dispatch CSI Jackson Doherty.

Is there a link between a suspicious fire at the stables and the serial killer?

As TJ and Doherty get closer to the truth they don’t realise the danger they are in. He is a killer – he’s angry at their investigation and he’ll do just about anything to protect his angels…

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Review: ‘Witchcraft…Into The Wilds’, by Rachel Patterson

Published By: Moon Books

Publication Date: 23rd February 2018

I.S.B.N.: 978-1-78535-459-5

Format: Paperback

Price: £11.99

Blurb

Witchcraft… into the wilds leads us through the wilds of nature and back to the roots and bones of witchcraft, a natural witchcraft that works with the seasons and all the natural items that Mother Nature provides, drawing on magical folk lore and a little bit of gypsy magic too. No fancy tools or ceremonial rituals, this is about working with the source. Mother Earth provides us with the changing of the seasons and within that turning of the year she gives us everything we need to work magic with, from natural energy in the form of storms, rain and sunshine to tangible items packed full of magical energy such as seeds, leaves and stones.

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