Category Archives: Uncategorized
Review: ‘I Know Where You Live’, By Pat Young
Published By: Bloodhound
Publication Date: 1st March 2018
Format: ebook
Price: $2.99
I.S.B.N.: 9781912604012
Blurb
Penny seizes the chance of a new life for her family when her husband is offered a job in Europe.
Penny believes she’s being watched. Yet no one should know where she lives.At the airport they meet charming Sophie, fluent in French and looking for work as an au pair.
Penny, struggling to cope in France, offers Sophie a job and she soon becomes an important part of the family’s life. But Sophie is hiding something.
Then Penny’s toddler son, Ethan, is abducted and an international hunt for the child begins.
The police beg Penny and her husband to take part in a television appeal but the couple refuse. Unknown to the police, Penny and Seth have new identities and are determined to lay low and protect them. But it may be too late for that.Who has taken Ethan and why?
Are the couple’s true identities linked to the abduction?
And who has been watching them?
To save her son Penny may have to put her own life on the line.
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Review: ‘So I Might Be A Vampire’, by Rodney V. Smith
Published By: Lost Bajan Publishing
Publication Date: 13th February 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781775007210
Format: Paperback
Price: £13.99
Blurb
Nobody expects to get turned into a vampire, especially a guy like Bob. Everybody hopes that if they somehow get transformed into a vampire, they will instantly become some kind of superhero vampire out of the movies. Bad news guys: not gonna happen. More likely than not, you’re gonna be one of the poor clueless bastards hanging out on Thursday nights with Bob in his vampire support group.
You may think you know what being a vampire is supposed to be like, but Bob is here to set you straight. He’s made it his personal mission to get answers about the reality of being a vampire. He’s been shot, stabbed, thrown off rooftops, survived bad coffee and endured crippling boredom – all in the name of answering the eternal question of what it means to be a vampire.
If you think you might be a vampire, this is the book for you.
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Review: ‘Comfort Food’, by Julia Bettelheim
Published By: Clink Street Publishing
Publication Date: 13th February 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781912262632
Format: E-book/Paperback
I’m reviewing this book as part of a Clink Street Publishing blog tour and received an e-book copy of the book in return for an honest review.
Blurb
here’s nothing quite like Comfort Food to put a smile on your face and a feeling of contentment in your stomach.
Chef Julia Bettelheim is passionate about feeding people; from the students in her university kitchen to guests and family at home.
From recipes that are as simple as a sandwich to as technical as a fruit cake, she knows the importance of creating delicious meals that are full of flavour and which always have budget in mind.
Her recipes include easy to make classics and mouth-watering family favourites, using easy to find products that are fresh and economical.
Fun, fast, indulgent and nurturing, there’s a time and a place for Comfort Food in every kitchen.
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Review: ‘The Mother’s Secret’, by Clare Swatman
Published By: Macmillan
Publication Date: 22nd February 2018
Format: Paperback
I.S.B.N.: 97815098248
61
Price: £7.99
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Uni weeks one and two
Hey, I remembered when I got in from university this evening that I haven’t done my weekly update since I started back at university. I started back last week. It’s a long day, even though I only have one two-hour seminar. Trains and such stretch the day out. I discovered tonight that it only costs £4 to get a taxi from the station to my house. Since I’m in stupid amounts of pain right now, I was willing to pay out the money to get home quickly. I’ve got pins and needles in my left foot right now, so this is going to be quick.
Week one was an introductory seminar, we made mock-ups of A5 pamphlets and discussed the process of publishing. I got to do colouring in.
Today we covered experimental writing and read some of Richard Brautigen’s Trout Fishing in America then attempted to write something in the same vein. I didn’t do very well, but I’ll share them with you.
Task: Write a piece in the style of Richard Brautigan about Brayford Wharf:
The swan and the pasta plate
As I sat out one midwinter evening eating pasta on the wharf, a swan came along to join me. I thought he might like a taste, so I threw the plate to him.
It sank without a taste.
The waiter brought another. I had to try again, as the swan paddled on, lost in the gloom.
I hit her head.
The table rocked when I climbed aboard, the swan barged the chair.
The waiter brought another plate.
“I prefer bread.” The swan said as she turned away.
He really didn’t like the taste.
Food and Lego
Across the river there waits a warm pub with plates of food just for the dragon and I. Long travelling had worn us out and we couldn’t find the donkeys to carry us. Perhaps they’d gone to the beach without me? Where shall I put my bucket and spade. There’s an island in the middle, we could go and play there. Dragon and I found the bricks. Someone had played here before us, some barge child, bored. A little house and farm. Trees and cows and sheep. Lego pigs in Lego pig shit. I don’t want to go to Denmark thanks.
See, I told you they weren’t very good. I think I’m a bit too literal to do the sort of whimsical, experimental writing some of the others could do well.
Right, going to bed now. Pain is getting a bit much.
Night.
New Research Suggests Social Issues are Down to Neurotypicals more than Autistics
I have suspected this for some time, it ties in with the social model of disability, I think.
Picture by Joan M. Mas
Autism is seen, in popular representations, largely as a social and communication disorder. Formerly framed as stemming from an autistic lack of a “social instinct”, the current dominant idea is that something is deficient or missing in autistic social cognition. Often referred to as a cognitive deficit in “empathy” or “theory of mind”, much research on autistic social issues has focused on trying to clarify and detect this inside autistic brains and minds. The search for an elusive broken “theory of mind module” or “empathy mechanism” in the brain, and its ensuing cognitive manifestations, however, has led to conflicting results – with some scientists even concluding that autistic people feel too much empathy rather than too little.
Another view is that this is not simply an individual neuro-cognitive issue, but rather a wider social problem. Against the idea that autistic people have too much or…
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Bonus Review #5: ‘Victorian Policing’, by Gaynor Haliday
Published By: Pen & Sword History
Publication Date: 15th November 2017
I.S.B.N.: 9781526706126
Format: Paperback
Price: £10.50
Alex at Pen and Sword emailed me last November to see if I wanted to review this book. I had a long list of books to review so I’ve finally got round to it.
Blurb
What was life like for the Victorian bobby? Gaynor Haliday became fascinated with the history of the early police forces when researching the life of her great, great grandfather; a well-regarded, long-suffering Victorian police constable in Bradford. Although a citation claimed his style of policing was merely to cuff the offender round the ear and send him home, press reports of the time painted a much grimmer picture of life on the beat in the Victorian streets.
Handwritten Watch Committee minutes, historical newspapers and police records combine to reveal an account of how and why the various police forces were set up; the recruitment, training and expectations of the men, the issues and crimes they had to deal with, and the hostility they encountered from the people whose peace they were trying to keep.
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Bonus Review #4: ‘Primal Awareness’, by Rob Wildwood
Published By: Moon Books
Publication Date: 26th January 2018
Format: Paperback
I.S.B.N.: 9781785356568
Price: £9.99
Blurb
Focusing on the origins of Western culture and belief systems, from ancient agriculture to modern industry, from primitive religion to monotheism, Primal Awareness explains how we became separated from nature and how, throughout history, these belief systems and social models have imposed a life of servitude and hardship upon millions of people. It also illustrates how modern technology and the modern scientific world view are currently causing the destruction of our natural environment. How can we overcome this separation, and reconnect with nature and spirit once again?
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Bonus Review # 3: ‘The Life of Henrietta Anne’, By Melanie Clegg
Published By: Pen & Sword
Publication Date: 25th September 2017
I.S.B.N.: 9781473893115
Format: Hardback
Price: £15.99
Blurb
Henrietta Anne Stuart, youngest child of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, was born in June 1644 in the besieged city of Exeter at the very height of the English Civil War. The hostilities had separated her parents and her mother was on the run from Parliamentary forces when she gave birth with only a few attendants on hand to give her support. Within just a few days she was on her way to the coast for a moonlit escape to her native France, leaving her infant daughter in the hands of trusted supporters. A few years later Henrietta Anne would herself be whisked, disguised as a boy, out of the country and reunited with her mother in France, where she remained for the rest of her life. Henrietta’s fortunes dramatically changed for the better when her brother Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. After being snubbed by her cousin Louis XIV, she would eventually marry his younger brother Philippe, Duc d’Orléans and quickly become one of the luminaries of the French court, although there was a dark side to her rise to power and popularity when she became embroiled in love affairs with her brother in law Louis and her husband’s former lover, the dashing Comte de Guiche, giving rise to several scandals and rumours about the true parentage of her three children. However, Henrietta Anne was much more than just a mere court butterfly, she also possessed considerable intelligence, wit and political acumen, which led to her being entrusted in 1670 with the delicate negotiations for the Secret Treaty between her brother Charles II and cousin Louis XIV, which ensured England’s support of France in their war against the Dutch.
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 