Set in the time of the Great Depression in 1930s America this book tells the story of the Dunne family and their neighbours. They, like many others, had been tempted to move west to farm in Oklahoma only to struggle … Continue reading →
The story is set in Iceland but could have been set anywhere – only the names of the characters and places show the connection. The book feels like it was written to be adapted for a TV series. It gets … Continue reading →
These are the first two books of Pullman’s second trilogy about Lyra, the mysterious substance called ‘Dust’ and the attempts of the powerful and sinister Magisterium to suppress all knowledge of it. The third book hasn’t yet been published. The … Continue reading →
After I found the second book in this series a bit disappointing (see ‘Dead Lions’) I was slow getting round to reading the next ones. Happily, ‘Real Tigers’ and then ‘Spook Street’ lived up to the promise of the original … Continue reading →
Horowitz has written several books continuing the work of famous authors, notably Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming/James Bond. I read one of his Holmes books, ‘House of Silk’, and enjoyed it. This one, a Bond story, not so much. … Continue reading →
This meticulously researched spoof of the diary of a late seventeenth-century student in Oxford who kept a dodo in his room will be specially enjoyed by anyone who knows something about the culture that makes Oxford what it was then … Continue reading →
Another ripping success for Hutchinson with this his second, and overall the third “book of the Aftermath” (if this doesn’t make sense, see the footnote here). This time the setting is mostly Oxford, but of course it’s not an Oxford … Continue reading →
This is the second book in the collaboration between Dave Hutchinson and Adam Roberts which started with Hutchinson’s ‘Shelter’. The third title, Hutchinson’s ‘Sanctuary’ has just been published; I have not yet received my copy. I have nothing original to … Continue reading →
In ‘Shelter’, written after completion and publication of the ‘Fractured Europe‘ novels and with the strapline ‘Book One of the Aftermath’, Hutchinson returns to the setting of a post-apocalyptic world. However in this one there is no time distortion, there … Continue reading →
I first came across Sally Hinchcliffe on Twitter* as someone who lives in Scotland and rides a bike, so when I realised she is also an author and had just had a novel published I thought it would be good … Continue reading →