General Fiction Books
The sense of adventure and bravery that someone needed to explore space in the 60s and 70s is beyond me. All that separates you from the vacuum of space is a few sheets of glass and metal. The technology onboard is simpler than the type of things you would get in a child’s electronic...
James Bond has evolved through the decades from the original Ian Fleming books to a world-famous series of films and even classic computer games, but at their heart the best Bonds all hark back to Fleming’s style. Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood is a surprise then as it is a Bond book...
There are many genres out there and you can find yourself as a reader sticking to the same ones. I always noticed the large collection of Westerns and books on historic America in my public library growing up. Most of them in large print, which suggested that the audience was older than my...
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
Nature, red in claw and tooth. It is a world of the strong surviving the weak dying. Therefore, fiction that tells a story from the animal perspective can be full on. Watership Down and The Animals of Farthing Wood have managed to traumatise many a youth and even the jolly Redwall books I used...
Never judge a person till you've walked a mile in their shoes, the late Terry Pratchett might add "because then you're a mile away, and have their shoes". It's something we do all the time, form snap judgements about people and situations, often based on first impressions. Perhaps it's a genetic...
There are two types of Christmases: merry or blue. Whether you are more Slade or Elvis will depend on the experiences you have had in the past on December 25th. Have your winters been full of family fun and presents? Do you get a sense of wellbeing and good tidings to...
There is an internet meme of Will Ferrel playing a dishevelled looking Anchorman and stating, “well that escalated quickly.” I have read many crime thrillers in my time, and they often pick up pace and rattle along, but none have...
Noir is not always an easy genre to write, there is a timeless tone to it. You can pick up a book that was written 70 years ago and it still has all the effortless style to make it incredibly readable. If you are going to write a new noir set during the classic noir period you are not only...
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
Historic fiction is often written about exciting characters who have full and adventurous lives. There is no point following someone who's past role in Egyptian culture was to turn the compost heaps four times a day. You want to follow the likes of Hui who goes from...
I love to read as books transport me to places and worlds that I have never been and can never go. In most cases these are fantasy or science fiction worlds, but there are a lot of places in our own history that seem just as exciting and different. 1970s Mexico is nothing like the country I...
If you don’t laugh, you will cry. One way that people cope with bleakness is to try and find the funny things in life. Recent lockdowns would have been a lot harder for me without my family to keep me smiling. Diagnoses of terminal illness is no laughing matter, but you...
Mystery is a powerful tool. You can exude a sense of power from the shadows that may not be true if a light was shined on you. The premise of T.S. Willberg’s Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder begins thus, with a mysterious detective agency, but we...
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