Everything Is Better With Dragons

TBR Pile Review: Floating Hotel, by Grace Curtis

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
Published: March 21, 2024 by Hodderscape
ISBN:9781529390582 (ISBN10: 1529390583)
Language: English

Description

Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. Year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury – and a magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as:

Why are there love poems in the lobby intray?

How many Imperial spies are currently on board?

What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver’s conference?

And perhaps most pertinently – who is driving the ship?

At the centre of these mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It’s the love of his life and the only place he’s ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl’s comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?

Blog tour calendar: Sanctuary of the Shadow, by Aurora Ascher

Review: Tomorrow’s Children, by Daniel Polansky

27 February 2024 | PB | 9781915202857 | £9.99/$18.99 |
Also available in ebook | Dystopian | Sci-Fi | Dark Fantasy

ABOUT THE BOOK

Tomorrow, the funk descends on Manhattan, a noxious cloud which separates the island from the rest of the world and mutates the population.

Generations on, the surviving population exists amid the rubble of modernity, wearing our cast-off clothing, worshipping celebrities as dim gods and using emojis in place of written language. The Island exists in a state of uneasy peace, with each neighbourhood an independent fiefdom, protecting itself with scrap metal spears and Molotov cocktails.

But something new has come to the Island, the first tourist in centuries, and this uneasy equilibrium is about to shatter…

Maria and the Space-Dragons #1 – March 2024 instalment

Alright! We’re back with Lah-Shar and Maria’s adventures. This time we get some insight into Lah-Shar’s life and thoughts.

Chapter two – Lah-Shar

Lah-Shar felt the air change as they came closer to the base. He’d seen planets with ice sheets miles deep that extended almost to the equator. He’d seen planets that were tidally locked, one side burning the other freezing. His own planet, Ran-Nang, the one he was an egg and youngster on, had a warm damp climate except for the desert for 20 degrees either side of the equator. Ascend was chilly by Ran-Nang standards, but humans found it comfortably warm.

Review: Kitchen Sanctuary Quick & Easy, by Nicky Corbishley

Publication date Thursday,
February 29, 2024
Price £22.00
EAN\ISBN-13 9781804191002

Description

Making dinner from scratch can feel like a chore – often half the battle is trying to find something that’s quick, nutritious and, most importantly, delicious. But delicious doesn’t have to mean demanding.

After their debut book, Sunday Times bestseller It’s All About Dinner, Kitchen Sanctuary is back – this time focusing on quick and easy meals, all made in 30 minutes or less!

With chapters such as Champion Chicken; Moreish Meat; Fantastic Fish; Vitally Veggie; Perfect Pasta; Rice, Noodles, Grains and Bread; Snack Suppers; Super Sauces – as well as a section dedicated to Smart Shortcuts containing Nicky’s top tips for speeding up dinner – you’ll be able to whip up a range of fabulous meals for the whole family, every day of the week, no matter how little time you have.

Review: Gogmagog, by Jeff Noon & Steve Beard

13th February 2024 | 9781915202826 | Paperback | £9.99 / $17.99 / $23.99

Gogmagog tells the story of an epic journey through the sixty-mile long ghost of a dragon.

Travel is by boat, a rickety steam launch captained by veteran taxi pilot Cady Meade, on the river Nysis. In her heyday Cady carried people and goods from the thriving seaports of the estuary into Ludwich, the capital city. Now she’s drunk, holed up in a rundown seaside resort, telling her bawdy tales for shots of rum.

All that’s about to change, when two strangers seek her out, asking for transport, one of whom – a young girl – is very ill, and in great danger. The other, an artificial being of singular character, has secrets hidden inside his crystal skull. So begins the voyage of the Juniper.

The Nysis is unlike any other river. Mysteries unfold with each port of call. Not many can navigate these channels, not many know of its whirlpools and sandbanks, and of the ravenous creatures that lurk beneath the surface.

Cady used to have the necessary knowledge, and the powers of spectral navigation.

But her glory days are well behind her now. This might well be her final journey.

Review: Slum Boy – A Portrait, by Juano Diaz

Publication date Thursday,
February 29, 2024
Price £20.00
EAN\ISBN-13 9781914240829

Description
“This is a heart-breaking story, beautifully told. I hope it finds a million
readers”. – Andrew O’Hagan

John MacDonald must find his mother.

Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late ’70s, a 4-year-old John’s life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother’s addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return.

A concerned neighbour reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her. His mind is consumed with images and memories he can’t process or understand, which his eventual adoptive parents silence out of fear as he grows into a young man within a strict Catholic and Romany Gypsy community.

This memoir is about how John found his way to his true identity, Juano Diaz, and how, against all odds, his unstoppable love for his mother sets him free.

Review: Gaia’s Revenge, by J.A. Browne

Description

The epic environmental coming of age fantasy continues. An ideal series for YA and MG readers who love fantasy, the magic of nature and want a stellar female cast of characters.

After one of the bloodline Elementals is snatched, Hannah and her guardian – a magical silverback fox called Alpha – must journey into the unknown to save a future still under threat.

But is it a trap?

As old enemies emerge and darkness spreads across the worlds, Hannah discovers that her own mother has mysteriously gone missing. With Gaia, the Mother of all Nature, hellbent on seeking revenge against those that are trying to destroy her, Hannah realises she’s running out of time and that to save the future, might just mean the mother of all sacrifices.

Review: Error of Judgement, by Chris Mullin

Published by Monoray in February 2024 at
£10.99 in Paperback.

Description

Error of Judgment lit a fire under the political and legal establishment when it was first published, shattering the prosecution case against six Irishmen wrongly convicted of with the Birmingham bombings and going on to change the course of British legal history. It also resulted in significant reforms to the legal system and the quashing of many other wrongful
convictions.

Now 50 years on from the bombings and with a new preface and several new chapters covering the aftermath of the case, this new edition of Error of Judgement tells the complete story of one of Britain’s most significant miscarriages of justice.

On the evening of 21st November 1974, bombs planted by the IRA in two crowded Birmingham pubs exploded, killing 21 people and injuring at least 170. Within a day of the explosion, six men – Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power, Johnny Walker and Hughie Callaghan – were arrested and charged. All were found guilty.

Methodically, with total clarity and a tone that is both gripping and impassioned, investigative journalist Mullin unpicked every detail of the case, revealing gaping holes in the prosecution case and an establishment determined to close ranks. Error of Judgement is a graphic illustration of what can go wrong when our police and criminal justice system is under pressure to get results and how difficult it is to persuade those responsible to own up once mistakes become obvious.

Review: Exodus, by Steve Catto

Blurb

The Balagoun brothers’ ten-year plan for taking the citizens of New London to a new life on Mars following the apocalypse is about to become a reality with the approaching launch of the first test flight, but equipment, supplies and energy are going missing, conspiracy theories are rife, and it seems as if not everyone wants to leave the Earth anyway.

To take their places as leaders of the new civilisation, their granddaughters Freya and Reihna must put aside their divided loyalties to the family and keep a restless city supporting a questionable dream.

If the information that the local news reporter Hanna Finnegan discovers proves to be true, that dream might just turn out to be a nightmare…