To The Last Page

My preferred title for my blog was '100 pages', but for whatever reason, Blogger wouldn't let me use that. That is the limit I will give a book the opportunity to grab me and want to keep on reading.  Anything that doesn't look promising I'll put aside, as I have a mountain of other books I'd much rather be spending time with. Such is the case unfortunately - but not unexpectedly - with Sara Cox's Thrown . I'm not sure it's fair to call this a review then, as I didn't get 'to the last page', but as long that's clear, here's a few thoughts impressions I have from the first 100 pages, which will at least ensure it is spoiler free. It's probably no surprise then that Sara Cox's debut fits very clearly under the category of 'Women's Fiction' or 'Female Interest'. I don't mean this to sound like a dismissive put-down, as it these are recognised and very popular genres, but as I am not the target readersh...

There's a certain comfort about coming back to familiar characters in a long running series. For most authors that is; with David Mark it's a mixture of emotions. You know that you're going to read another superlative crime thriller featuring his wonderful and warm human characters, you just don't know what horrors the author is going to put them through this time. As book 10 in his DS McAvoy series , you probably know that it's likely to be a case that no-one is going to get an easy ride or come out unmarked. Un-David Marked. Sometimes I'm not sure even the criminals deserve what they get in his books... Take for example the unfortunate individual at the start of Blind Justice . We don't know exactly what has gone wrong, just that he and a friend were attempting a house robbery, one that should have been a doddle, but he now finds himself lying in mud in the dark, while his friend is screaming in agony. As he feels half his leg being ripped off by a bear tr...

As she demonstrated in her impressive debut novel Big Girl, Small Town , Michelle Gallen can depict the problems and indignities of being a woman from a deprived background living in small provincial community with authenticity and humour. Even if you're not from this part of the world, a country that has stark divisions across religious and political lines, the experiences of feeling like an outsider and feeling held back from being yourself will still be recognisable to anyone.  The social and political context might also be recognisable however if you've seen Derry Girls . I might as well get the obvious comparison out of the way now (the title invites such comparisons), because despite the superficial similarities and the period of the Troubles covered, Michelle Gallen does move on and have other issues to deal with. If it helps however, you could see the teenage protagonist of Factory Girls as practically a sequel to the  Derry Girls  TV series. Maeve and her friend...

There's a great deal to admire in the works of B. Catling. Leaving aside his work as a sculptor and artist, his fiction has a distinctive character, a tremendously imaginative and original approach to dark fantasy, the writing evoking wondrous visuals. He is at his most expansive in The Vorrh trilogy, but equally creative in shorter works like Earwig . Hollow is another fabulous creation, creating a world so unsettling that it's not one you'd particularly want to revisit in a trilogy. It indeed starts out like a fable, one set in medieval times, where Follett and his group of mercenaries and knights of seemingly Dutch or Flemish origin have been tasked by the High Church with delivering a new oracle to the monastery of the Eastern Gate, Das Kagel, formerly known as the Tower of Babel. The nature of the Blessed Oracle is a little obscure but also somewhat disturbing. A creature of withered limbs, it feeds on the marrow of human bones treated fresh by the whispered sins of ...