When Mala the Koala stomps into the forest, feeling very crummy, a little mouse suggests Mala will soon feel better if she starts to be kind. But how? wonders Mala. Soon she’s sharing her lunch with some emu chicks, helping a baby bat and comforting her friend, Wombat – discovering, on her way, that kindness really is what makes the world go round. This easy-to-read rhyming story, with gentle humour and gorgeous artwork, is a perfect introduction to kindness.
As a half-goddess possessing magic, Yaga is used to living on her own, her prior entanglements with mortals having led to heartbreak. She mostly keeps to her hut in the woods, where those in need of healing seek her out, even as they spread rumours about her supposed cruelty and wicked spells. But when her old friend Anastasia—now the wife of the tsar and suffering from a mysterious illness—arrives in her forest desperate for her protection, Yaga realizes the fate of all of Russia is tied to Anastasia’s. Yaga must step out of the shadows to protect the land she loves. As she travels to Moscow, Yaga witnesses a sixteenth century Russia on the brink of chaos. Tsar Ivan— soon to become Ivan the Terrible—grows more volatile and tyrannical by the day, and Yaga believes the tsaritsa is being poisoned by an unknown enemy. But what Yaga cannot know is that Ivan is being manipulated by powers far older and more fearsome than anyone can imagine.
Kings of the Wyld meets Deadpool in this action-packed fantasy adventure set in an Arab-inspired landscape.
Varcade fled to the deserts of Harrah to escape his past as an Educator, a member of an order of zealot warrior-monks that aims to shape the world according to their sacred Teachings by force. Varcade makes his living as a reckless sword-for-hire, caring only about himself, until his self-centered lifestyle is turned on its head when he is contracted to recruit a misfit team of unruly assassins and take out the mighty Bone Lord of Akrab.
But the Bone Lord is aware of the plot and sends her band of Dusters to stop them; individuals who have gained bizarre and lethal magical powers by snorting the pulverised bones of dead gods. Hunted by Educators and Dusters in a city-state where an escalating conflict between the human and demon population threatens to boil over in a civil war, will Varcade and his ragtag crew save Akrab from the cruel Bone Lord, or will they make things even worse?
“The Crew is a rampaging romp of an adventure, as thrilling and hilarious as it is fantastically unique. I loved it.” –Dyrk Ashton, author of The Paternus Trilogy
Before the killing began, Varcade wanted to enjoy a glass of iced milk sweetened with honey. He licked his lips, drumming his fingers on the counter as the bartender poured the drink in a clay cup, then set it before Varcade. “There. Happy now?”
Varcade flipped a copper coin to the woman. “You bet,” he said with a smile before downing it in one swig. He exhaled and wiped the milk from his upper lip. “Alright, with that out of the way, it’s time for me to kill a guy. I’m looking for someone by the name of—”
“You what?” the bartender interrupted. “Kill a man? Here?”
“Yup.” Varcade nodded. “That’s the job I’ve been paid for. Why else would I be somewhere like this? No offence, but we’re in the middle of the desert. You couldn’t have chosen a livelier place for your tavern?”
“Are you bloody stupid?” the woman said. “You can’t come to my establishment and tell me you’re gonna kill someone. I’m trying to make a living here.”
“You do you, and I’ll do me. How ‘bout that?” Varcade turned away from the bartender and leapt on the nearest table, knocking over their drinks and food to the dismay of the patrons sitting around it. Now he had everyone’s attention. Behind him, he heard the bartender shouting something about guards.
“I’m looking for a guy calling himself Frying Pan Pete,” Varcade said. “I’ve been told he likes coming here. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll be gone before you know it.”
The man seated by the table tugged on Varcade’s leg. “You really don’t wanna be messin’ with Frying Pan Pete, man,” he whispered. “Trust me.”
May 2014. Sierra Leone is ranked the country with the highest death rate of pregnant women in the world. The same month, Ebola crosses in from neighbouring Guinea. Arriving a few weeks later, Dr Benjamin Black finds himself at the centre of an exponential Ebola outbreak.
From impossible decisions on the maternity ward to moral dilemmas at the Ebola Treatment Centres. One mistake, one error of judgment, could spell disaster.
Publication date: 25th August 2022 Category: Fiction Print RRP: £11.99 Print ISBN: 978-1-913109-90-5 Paperback: 198 x 129 mm E-book RRP: £6.99 E-book ISBN: 978-1-913109-96-7
Blurb
The narrator, Mwana, is a young man from Bantuland, living in Geneva. A graduate from a Swiss university, we first encounter Mwana waiting for a bus in the hills of Lugano gazing at a poster calling for “black sheep” to be sent home. Mwana’s efforts to find work are fruitless until he lands an internship in an NGO campaigning against racial discrimination. The team is busy organising a demonstration against the black sheep poster.
Mwana has one foot in each culture. He sees Swiss society through African eyes, with all its contradictions: its moderation, stunning landscapes and its eccentricities, but also its intolerance and inflexibility. He also casts a critical eye on his native Africa, the weight of its traditions and beliefs. Is belonging nowhere the price Mwana has to pay for these insights?
Sad and playful Does Snow Turn a Person White Inside? is a moving reflection on the immigrant experience.
Rosemarie’s Note: This was going to be a review, but the book didn’t arrive in time, so promo post instead. The book arrived on Monday, I’m reading it and will review it as soon as possible. I’m about 23% of the way through the book.
I’m disappointed, I was looking forward to sharing this book with you. It’s not the fault of the blog tour organiser, but probably a delay at the publisher’s end. These things happen, unfortunately.
Author Biography:
Max Lobe was born in Douala, Cameroon. At eighteen he moved to Switzerland, where he earned a BA in communication and journalism and a master’s in public policy and administration. In 2017, his novel Confidences won the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize. Other books by the author include 39 Rue de Berne and A Long Way From Douala published by Small Axes in 2021. Max Lobe lives in Geneva.
Information about the Book Title: Witchstorm Authors: Tim Tilley Publisher: Usborne Release Date: 29th September 2022 Genre: MG (8 – 12 year olds)
Summary
Join a hunt for lost witch treasure, in an enchanting adventure story of storms, spells, and the magic of the natural world, from bestselling and award-winning Tim Tilley.
Will believes in witches and the stories he’s grown up with – of mythical storm-lions, disappearing villages, and secret songs. Most of all, he believes the tales of magical treasure hidden in the Fens centuries ago. Treasure that he has to find, to solve the mystery of his Ma’s disappearance.
Then, in the eye of a storm, a witch arrives. She holds the key to finding the lost treasure – a powerful magical object that can summon storms. But someone else is searching for it too. If it falls into the wrong hands, Will’s beloved home could be destroyed, and with it, his chances of ever finding his ma. Join Will on an epic quest filled with riddles, ruined towers, cloud cities and broomstick chases, on a journey to save everything he loves before time runs out.
PUBLICATION DATE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2022 HARDBACK ORIGINAL | £16.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Blurb
1899, Belle Époque Paris. Lucienne’s two daughters are believed dead when her mansion burns to the ground, but she is certain that her girls are still alive and embarks on a journey into the depths of the spiritualist community to find them.
1949, Post-War Québec. Teenager Lina’s father has died in the French Resistance, and as she struggles to fit in at school, her mother introduces her to an elderly woman at the asylum where she works, changing Lina’s life in the darkest way imaginable.
2002, Quebec. A former schoolteacher is accused of brutally stabbing her husband – a famous university professor – to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who has recently lost her own husband and is parenting a teenager and a new baby single-handedly, takes on the investigation. Under enormous personal pressure, Maxine makes a series of macabre discoveries that link directly to historical cases involving black magic and murder, secret societies and spiritism … and women at breaking point, who will stop at nothing to protect the ones
The end of empire in the island of Great Britain was both more abrupt and more complete than in any of the other European Roman provinces. When the fog clears and Britain re-enters the historical record, it is, unlike other former European provinces of the Western Empire, dominated by a new culture that speaks a language that is neither Roman nor indigenous British Brythonic and with a pagan religion that owes nothing to Romanitas or native British practices.
Other ex-Roman provinces of the Western Empire in Europe showed two consistent features conspicuously absent from the lowlands of Britain: the dominant language was derived from the local Vulgar Latin and the dominant religion was a Christianity that looked towards Rome. This leads naturally to the question: ‘what was different about Britannia?’ A further anomaly in our understanding lies in the significant dating mismatch between historical and archaeological data of the Germanic migrations, and the latest genetic evidence. The answer to England’s unique early history may lie in resolving this paradox.
John Lambshead summarizes the latest data gathered by historians, archaeologists, climatologists and biologists and synthesizes it all into a fresh new explanation.
Astronauts are dying on the first crewed mission to Mars. Is it bad luck, or something far more sinister?
An international mission to search for life on Mars meets heated opposition from the religious right in the USA. Astronaut Hattie Fredericks’ dreams are realised when she is selected for the voyage, but her presence on the Starship coincides with a series of incidents which threaten to derail the mission.
After a near-miss while landing on Mars, the world watches as Hattie and the crew struggle to survive. But worse than the harsh elements are her suspicions that someone is trying to destroy the mission. After several crew members die, Hattie doesn’t know who to trust. And her only allies are 35 million miles away.
As the tension ratchets up, violence and suspicion invade both worlds.
Pub date: 21 JULY 2022 ISBN 13: 978-1-914585-20-3 EPUB: 978-1-914585-21-0 Price: £9.99
The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.
A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.
As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…
Everything Is Better With Dragons 