#springreads – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: ‘The Cubit Quest’, by Trevor Leck

Published By: Clink Street Publishing

Publication Date: 2nd March 2017

I.S.B.N.: 978-1911525271

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Blurb

Twelve-year-old Charlie Watkins could have inherited his dad’s massive intellect.
He got his massive feet instead.

Perhaps if Charlie had that intellect he might have been able to figure out why so many men in suits were suddenly following him or where his dad hid the Cubit – a mythical object that men have sworn to protect and even more have died trying to possess – before his so-called accident.

If starting yet another new school wasn’t bad enough, Charlie meets Mr Leopold, a disfigured, mind-reading lunatic and discovers that he alone must find the Cubit if he is to save his dad. The Brotherhood, however, have other ideas. Led by the ruthless Draganovic, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. With the help of Mr Leopold and fellow new boy Elvis, Charlie sets out on The Cubit Quest.

Hunting for the Cubit, playing football, lessons with the dreaded Funeral Face and unsuccessfully avoiding school bully Grimshaw by day, Charlie finds his nights no less complicated. Stalked in his dreams, he’s soon immersed in a world of power struggles, battling dragons and duels to the death. With the Brotherhood hot on his heels and as the bullets begin to fly, there are no guarantees that Charlie, or anyone else, will make it to the end in one piece.

Purchase from Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N12WKPG/

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Review: ‘The Book of Air’, by Joe Treasure

Published By: Clink Street Publishing

Publication Date: 4th April 2017

I.S.B.N.: 978-1911525097

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Blurb

Retreating from an airborne virus with a uniquely unsettling symptom, property developer Jason escapes London for his country estate, where he is forced to negotiate a new way of living with an assortment of fellow survivors.

Far in the future, an isolated community of descendants continue to farm this same estate. Among their most treasured possessions are a few books, including a copy of Jane Eyre, from which they have constructed their hierarchies, rituals and beliefs. When 15-year-old Agnes begins to record the events of her life, she has no idea what consequences will follow. Locked away for her transgressions, she escapes to the urban ruins and a kind of freedom, but must decide where her future lies.

These two stories interweave, illuminating each other in unexpected ways and offering long vistas of loss, regeneration and wonder.

The Book of Air is a story of survival, the shaping of memory and the enduring impulse to find meaning in a turbulent world.

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Review: ‘The Horse’s Arse’, by Laura Gascoigne

Published By: Clink Street Publishing

Publication Date: 4th April 2017

I.S.B.N.: 978-1911110873

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Blurb

Patrick Phelan is an ageing artist who has never made it big but who somehow manages to live on air in a North London suburb.

When not running art classes for amateurs, Patrick wrestles in the shed at the bottom of his garden with his life’s work: a series of visionary canvases of The Seven Seals.

When his wheeler-dealer son Marty turns up with a commission from a rich client for some copies of paintings by modern masters, Phelan reluctantly agrees; it means money for his ex-wife Moira. However the deal with Marty is, typically, not what it seems.

What follows is a complex chain of events involving fakery, fraud, kidnapping, murder, the Russian Mafia and a cast of dubious art world characters. A contemporary spin on Joyce Cary’s classic satire The Horse’s Mouth, The Horse’s Arse by Laura Gascoigne is a crime thriller-cum-comic-fable that poses the serious question: where does art go from here?

Purchase from Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horses-Arse-Laura-Gascoigne-ebook/dp/B01MUZXN8G/

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Spring Reads!

Next week I’ll be taking part in the Clink Street Spring Reads blog tour. I’m looking forward to reviewing the books for you. I’m reading the first of three books now.

Spring Reads 2018

Technically, the nephew is reading one of the books for me, because it’s aimed at his age group, but I’ll be writing the review based on his comments. He has a wobbly if I make him write the reviews. I’d planned to read and review it myself, but then I realised I was being a bit ambitious, especially with everything going on at the moment. Sometimes, you have to share the burden.

Review: ‘Addicted to Death’, by Matthew Redford

Published By: Clink Street

Publication Date: 2015

I.S.B.N.: 9781910782071

My Review

Pros:

Amusing, I enjoyed the homour ans storytelling
Well-developed characters
Good plot
Unexpected villain
Entertaining twits (and I do mean twits, not twists)
The plot twists were good too
Timely social satire

Cons

A little heavy on the puns. One after another after another got a bit repetitive at times
Some of them just weren’t funny

Overall

A very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. I picked the book up to get it read, expecting that it might take me a few days as some of my review books do, and couldn’t put it down for several hours. It put me in mind of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books, the humour and absurdity is on a similar level. I recommend it if you enjoy those books.

4/5

Spring Reads Blog Tour 2017

Clink Street, in association with Authoright, are having a blog tour for their writers from 10th to 17th April, and I am pleased to be one of the hosts. Later this week there will be a couple of writer’s spotlights and extracts from novels, plus I will be reviewing the books of the two authors who will feature in them, Lee Cockburn and Matthew Redford.