Books tagged with: child abuse
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![Doctor SleepStephen King]()
HorrorOkay I must admit that when I heard about this book coming into existence I must say I was rather excited, hell, it was more than that it was like sliced bread. Doctor Sleep for those who aren’t aware, is the sequel, of sorts, to The Shining, one of the best books Mr King has written in my humble op...
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![ITStephen King]()
HorrorProbably one of the best King books ever written. No that isn’t the review although if it was that would still sum the book up pretty easily. So great I’ve now read it four times, although admittedly never as fast as that first hungry initial reading. With every read, certain elements jump out at yo...
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![SnowtearS.B. Davidson]()
FantasyReview by author Luis Villazon. This is a detective novel, with a fantasy setting. The city of Winter Moon is surrounded on three sides by impenetrable mountains and on the fourth by an impassable frozen sea. Its only connection to the outside world is via the magical floating city of Crystalline, w...
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![BattleaxeSara Douglass]()
FantasyThe Beginning of the Axis Trilogy by Australian fantasy author Sara Douglass, Battleaxe is also the first novel of The Wayfarer Redemption in the USA. This first book revolves around Axis, Battleaxe of the Axe-Wielders, and Faraday, daughter of Earl Isend of Skarabost. The story begins with in the...
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![EmpressKaren Miller]()
FantasyEmpress is the first volume in the Godspeaker trilogy, written by Australian author Karren Miller. Hekat is a girl treated worse than a slave with a violent father who beats her mother and rapes her repeatedly on the insistence that she should give him more sons. Not even named, she is eventually s...
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![The Heir of NightHelen Lowe]()
FantasyThe Heir of Night was reviewed by me for the 2012 David Gemmell Morningstar Award, which went on to win the award! I've been aware of the novel for some time now but as it was never sent to me it remained one I'd been meaning to buy and I'm very glad that I'm getting the chance to read it for the G...
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![The Night CircusErin Morgenstern]()
Fantasy“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.” Celia Bo...
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![The Road to BedlamMike Shevdon]()
FantasyThe Road to Bedlam is the second volume in the The Courts of the Feyre series, which started with the incredible debut novel Sixty One Nails by Angry Robot Author Mike Shevdon. The novel begins shortly after the events in Sixty One Nails with Blackbird expecting the birth of their child any time so...
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![The Straight Razor CureDaniel Polansky]()
FantasyThe greatest city in the Thirteen Lands, Rigus stands as a radiant hub of grandiose manors and sparkling citadels. It's a place where nobility rules and disagreements are settled with honourable duels. In the shadow of this glory sits Low Town, a vast warren of dark, narrow streets, dirty alleys and...
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![A Head Full of GhostsPaul Tremblay]()
HorrorA Head Full of Ghosts was first released last year and won the coveted Bram Stokers award for Best Novel. It's also received pretty much the finest compliment a Horror novel can receive when Stephen King said of the book: Scared the living hell out of me, and I'm pretty hard to scare...
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![Our Child of the StarsStephen Cox]()
Science FictionI read a lot of science fiction and one element I am not duly bothered about is feelings. I prefer the imagery of cold steel roaring through space over the relationship between two characters, but without emotions what is the point of a story at all? Our Child of the Stars by Stephen Cox is a depart...
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![Green ValleyLouis Greenberg]()
Science FictionThe average person seems to put a lot of trust in their Government. No way they are spying on me online and even if they are, what am I doing that they would care about? This attitude has shown that ignorance is not bliss, they may just sell your data to the highest bidder and before you know it the...
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![The Invention of SoundChuck Palahniuk]()
HorrorSound can be powerful, get the tone right or the volume loud enough and you can cause real damage. There are skyscrapers that have been built that hum when the wind perfectly hits the building to make it vibrate. The worse thing that happens here is an annoying sound when the win...
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![Dark LullabyPolly Ho-Yen]()
Science FictionThey all tell you that having children is not easy, but nothing prepared us for the first six weeks of having a defenceless little tyke in the house. You may have read the books, been to a few classes or asked relatives and friends, but when it comes down to it, this is all on your shoulde...
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![Black MouthRonald Malfi]()
HorrorA group of adults tormented by their past when a carnival worker changed their lives forever. Sound familiar? No not It, but Ronald Malfi’s Black Mouth, the author’s own take on how the memories of youth haunt the present. This is dark horror with glimpses of the supernatural, but also p...
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![PenitentMark Leggatt]()
General FictionTelling a story in the first person means that you are going to want a protagonist that the reader can connect with, but what if that character struggles with relationships? In Mark Leggatt’s Penitent, Hector is a brilliant lawyer, but has far more interest in the process than the people. He h...
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![Mister MagicKiersten White]()
HorrorChildren’s TV shows will always have an evocative place in your memory, especially those half-remembered tales from when you were young. Your cognitive powers had not yet full formed, so your memory of the show comes in snatches like magic. For me it will always be Wizbit. I picture a strange...
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![Anatomy of a KillerRomy Hausmann]()
General FictionHaving watched plenty of True Crime documentaries I am often struck how loyal some friends and family are to the criminal. They have been convicted of the crime, but sometimes family just will not accept the outcome. Injustice is one reason, people do get sent down for something they never did, but...
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![The Butcher of the ForestPremee Mohamed]()
FantasyThere is a perfectly sensible reason why the concept of Fairy Woods exist. Back in the day, the land was covered in thick forests, any person that travelled too far from the village or well-trodden tracks could easily get lost and become victim to one of several predators from wolves to wild boars....
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![The Final OrchardC J Rivera]()
Science FictionWhen the apocalypse inevitably comes do you want to know about it? Would you like the chance to peer out of the window and see the world burning, perhaps you can make a run for the high ground? Another option is to live in pure ignorance underground, competing with your fellow residents for the perc...
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![At Dark I Become LoathsomeEric Larocca]()
HorrorLike every genre, there are several aspects to Horror that you can focus on. My preference is the supernatural, something big and scary, preferably not overexplained. There is another subgenre, one that is arguably far scarier. I call it the horror of the mundane. Those killers that live among us, t...
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![Midnight StreetsPhil Lecomber]()
General FictionAgatha Christie would have us believe that inter-War murder was cosy, taking place in a picturesque village or on a mode of transport whilst taking in the sites of the Grand Tour. Whilst Marple was eating muffins and Poirot was drinking Prosecco, most of us would have been thrown into the daily grin...
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![EsperanceAdam Oyebanji]()
Science FictionWhat would you do if you had technology that no one else in the world had. Would you use it to better your life, make some money? Perhaps you would share it with others to develop society as a whole? Or maybe you would use it for revenge. A series of impossible murders is stumping Detective Ethan Kr...
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![The DescentChristian Francis]()
HorrorI read so much genre fiction and have seen so many horror movies that I don’t scare easy. My brain automatically remembers all the behind-the-scenes make-up specials and director commentaries; I know it is not real. However, back in 2005 the last film that scared me was about a group of female...
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