General Fiction Books
Welcome to the Hotel Avocado, such a lovely book; is something The Eagles might have said, had they known Bob Mortimer was writing again.
When I reviewed The Satsuma Complex I came to it braced for disappointment and left it grinning like an idiot, having been thoroughly disarmed by a...
One of the magical things about novels is that they can transport you to any time and any place; from the depth of history to the expanses of space. The issue I have is that they do seem to return to the same places, even if they have an entire universe to explore. Silvia Moreno-Garcia always...
There is a nervousness that descends when a beloved celebrity, especially a comedian, announces they have written a book. We have all been burned before and will probably continue to be (I still haven't been able to finish reading The Book of Elsewhere). The celebrity novel is a well-established...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
To work in a novel, you need to be the right amount of crazy. Too little and you just come across as a little odd and moany, too much and your book has just become a horror novel. In Callisto Lodwick’s The Drowned Siren, Eleanor is a student in Scotland who is introverted and clingy, but...
Journalist have somewhat of a chequered reputation, for every Watergate, there is ten celebrities caught in the act. In recent times, the profession has cleaned up its act a little, but it still relies heavily on eyes on the page or viewing figures. This leads to a competitive market and some...
I am a student of History, but even to this day there are massive blind spots in my learning, moments in the past that I know little about, so anything on the subject matter feels fresh to me. I have a passing knowledge of the Antient Greek Gods, but having read Aphrodite in Pieces by Lauren J....
I love to play hidden object games; I find them a nice way to relax after a busy day. I also love to read for the same reason, even a crime story can be comforting in its own way. Death Wasn’t Invited by Carlene O’Connor combines the two as it is a ‘cosy’ crime caper...
There are different people in life. There are those that love the idea of travelling to a remote Indonesian island with three friends and surfing huge waves, and those that think this is a barmy idea and would rather go on a nice city break or read a book by the pool. What you do not always get...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
In fiction you can blur the real world with the fictional to give your story a sense of authenticity. This is something that Jake Arnott has done in the past taking a splash of truth, a soupcon of reality, and then blending in some fictional high-octane action. In the case of Blood Rival, there...
The pulp crime genre is one of my favourite because it pushes the envelope of what is acceptable in crime. It can be a little too gory, a little too silly, a little too much, but that is what makes it so fun to read. There is a delicate balance between writing a thrilling action crime story that...
Noir comes in many flavours, not just 1940s black and white detective. There have been classic noir novels that have reflected the decades they were written. The 90s noir I enjoyed had a bright Hollywood gleam to it; that was only shone to hide the grime set shallow below the surface. The Loose...
There are certain historic events that I return to in fiction as no matter how many times I have read about them, authors have found new ways of exploring the past. I must have read about Caesar’s rise and fall twenty times or more, but there is room for more retellings. Caesar’s Spy...
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