Books

ARC courtesy Blackstone Publishing (via NetGalley) – release date 21 September 2021. Humanity by and large is not a fan of things that go bump in the night. Or for that matter the creatures we imagine dwell in the shadows or which don’t conform to our idea of what is Continue Reading

Humanity, it must be said, loves a bit of personal PR. It’s not necessarily a deliberate thing; we don’t step out the door each day, or in these COVID-blighted times, appear on a Zoom call, with the deliberate intention of making ourselves look as good as possible. But our inadvertent Continue Reading

There is a giddy escapist loveliness to people falling in love, a reassuring sense that the world night be cruel and quite nasty at times but good things still dwell within its blighted surrounds. Usually when two people are falling in love, however, it’s because they’ve met in one of Continue Reading

Ah, the heady lure of immortality – what is there not to find attractive about the idea of living forever? Almost nothing if the motivations of the characters in Jake Wolff’s unconventionally plotted race to the immortal finish line, The History of Living Forever is any guide. In this sometimes Continue Reading

There is a profound beauty and sense of completion that comes into being when someone is finally able to be authentically who they are. No more hiding, no more deception, to themselves or others, a giddy sense of self acceptance that becomes all the more potent when others also accept Continue Reading

History is usually looked upon very dispassionately. We see conquerors and the conquered, civilisations rise and civilisations fall, and while we know there are real people involved in all these recounted events, we don’t often pause to consider what it must have been like to be on the receiving end Continue Reading

Happiness! It’s what we all crave, what we need, what we must have in all its technicolour, eye-poppingly perfect, sadness-banishing glory, right? Well, yes, in a sense – I mean who doesn’t want to be happy? But in Lucie Britsch’s brilliant novel, Sad Janet, it becomes patently clear that happiness, Continue Reading

Do space operas always have to be so deadly serious? Sure, the protagonist’s life, and that of their gallant, family-sized crew are often in the balance, the galaxy is teetering on the edge of oblivion and bad guys and gals seem to be creeping out from under asteroid and half Continue Reading

“The end of the world” is one of those soul darkening phrases that sounds definitively, irrevocably, irreparably final. But what if the end of the world wasn’t so much an end, though in many ways it is, but simply a “pause”? What might that be that like? In The Beginning Continue Reading

On title alone, you could be forgiven for thinking that The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson is one of those deliciously escapist slice-of-life British adventures where idiosyncratically good things happen to people who really need some good to come into their beleaguered lives. And while, there is Continue Reading