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Review: 'Holy Island' by L. J. Ross

2/3/2016

Fast Pace and Powerful Prose

I really liked L.J.Ross’ crime thriller, ‘Holy Island.’ I know Lindisfarne well and thoroughly enjoyed being taken back to its rugged isolation by the author. However, I’ll never look at the locals in the same way again after reading this book!

D.C.I. Ryan and Dr. Anna Taylor are strong and attractive characters (although I felt Anna could have played a bigger role in the investigation.)

My only other complaint is all the unnecessary head-hoping from one character's point of view to another which I found disconcerting at times. The romantic scenes didn’t detract from the power of this thriller. L.J. keeps the pace moving and the story powers towards the dramatic finale.

2015 in Review: Books

30/12/2015

The Best & Worst of the Books I Read in 2015

It is not always easy for me to find time to simply read for pleasure. Apart from writing my own books, I receive many requests from fellow authors every year to read and review their novels, which is usually, although not always, a pleasure. Fortunately, I managed to to find some quality reading time during my recent holiday to Cyprus and was able to indulge in my passion.

In this blog, I thought I'd share my thoughts about the best and worst fiction I've come across in 2015. I have also included my most surprising book of the year and the one I was most anticipating.

My Favourite Book of 2015
The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

What’s to say that hasn’t already been said about this novel?

It’s a brilliant book – and far, far better than its American rival, Gone Girl in which the two main characters are over-shadowed by their egos and the writer robs us of a satisfactory ending in order to set up the sequel.

I don’t normally like present tense narration but Paula Hawkins is an expert in its use and skilfully draws you into the conflicted minds of her three female narrators. She takes the reader backwards and forwards through time and creates a palpable sense of tension as the narrations start to coincide and become chronological.

I liked the crazy, screwed-up characters in The Girl on the Train – especially Rachel – and the book came to a wonderful Karmic ending when the villain got it in the neck – literally.

Biggest Literary Disappointment of 2015
And The Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini really disappointed me with his novel, And the Mountains Echoed. Hosseini is one of my favourite authors. I had this book on my Kindle for years and waited until I was on holiday and could savour it. I was devastated to find out that it had no plot.

And the Mountains Echoed is a disjointed series of short stories which introduce dozens of characters loosely connected to a house in Kabul over a period of sixty years. You need to take notes in order to keep track of who's who and the character’s random connections with each other. I abandoned the novel twice in frustration and confusion and only finished it because I thought that there would be an amazing ending where everything would suddenly become clear.

There wasn’t and it didn’t.

Most Anticipated Book of 2015
Go Set a Watchman - Harper Lee

For me, the publishing highlight of the year had to be Go Set a Watchman by Harper Collins. To kill a Mockingbird is one of my all-time favourites and like millions of others around the world I waited with bated breath for the sequel. Or was it a prequel? Or was it just a first attempt at fiction, discarded when the author realised she had the seeds of a far, far, bigger story in the rape trial of Tom Robinson seen through the eyes of a seven year-old child? Was it actually possible to follow To Kill a Mockingbird?

I adored parts of Go Set a Watchman and laughed out loud on my sunbed in Cyprus when I read about the further adventures of Jem and Scout. This was Harper Lee at her best. But the over-riding emotion I had when I’d finished the novel was sympathy for the author. This book left me with mixed feelings of disappointment and pleasure. I have no idea, or not, if Lee was pressurised into releasing this novel against her better judgement but part of me wishes she hadn’t.

And part of me is glad that she did.

Biggest Literary Surprise of 2015
Ramblin' Rose: The Boatwoman's Story
- Sheila Stewart

I love this book. I read my mother’s copy many years ago and I picked it up again in 2015 to dip into as part of a research project for my current novel but found that I wasn’t able to put it down. Sheila Stewart gives Rose such a distinctive voice that you are hooked from the first page.

Rose’s narrative is a fascinating, unsentimental account of the life (and death) of the men and women who worked ours canals during the first fifty years of the nineteenth century. It vividly recreates their culture, traditions, hardships and tragedies. But it also reveals the incredible love, pride and strong-bond between this close-knit, free-floating community who were isolated from land-locked Britain for generations.

Review: Plaint for Provence

30/11/2015

My Favourite Historical Novel of 2015

Plaint for Provence
by
Jean Gill

This is the third novel in The Troubadours Series but it can easily stand-alone for readers new to Jean Gill’s fascinating series about the political intrigue and culture of French court life in the twelfth century. The strong opening of this novel hooked me immediately; it is wonderful to read fiction were even the personalities of the minor characters leap off the page with wiliness and humour. Jean Gill is a strong writer who sweeps you along into her world and never leaves you struggling to understand the motivation of the characters or the historical background of their realm.

Rich in historical detail, this novel brings alive all aspects of mediaeval life from the high-born pursuits of hunting, jousting and politics, to the simpler occupations of the peasants, like bee-keeping. But the dazzling background never overshadows the stars of the novel: the enlightened and musically gifted Estela, and her knight, Dragonetz.

Now parents, I felt a growing maturity and wisdom evident in the two lovers. A dazzling swordsman and equally gifted singer, Dragonetz treads a wary path in ‘Plaint for Provence’ between two feuding overlords as he tries to keep the fragile peace between the resentful and warring factions at the court of Les Baux. With friends in both camps, we feel his dilemma. Yet he adapts to the role with style, proving himself both a brilliant diplomat and a wily adversary.

This is historical fiction at its best.

Available on Amazon

Review: Twisted by B. A Morton

3/10/2015

An exciting and realistic thriller

I love a novel with a strong, distinctive voice and Spook doesn’t disappoint. B.A. Morton’s anti-heroine in ‘Twisted’ is Elizabeth Salander with a wicked sense of humour or perhaps an adult, female Artemis Fowl. But ‘Twisted’ is not child’s play nor is it as bleak as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’ Caught somewhere in-between, it is an exciting and realistic thriller, enriched with a smidgen of humour and set in the crime-ridden underworld of Newcastle.

When Miller’s bank robbery goes horribly wrong, he ends up dependent upon the manipulating and twisted Spook with the entire police force and most of the Geordie mafia on his tail. But like Spook, the enigmatic Miller isn’t what he seems. The two of them race through a plot with more twists and turns than a staircase in an inner-city skyscraper. They make a disturbing but strangely attractive team and the novel is compelling reading. Thoroughly recommended.

Review: Ramlin Rose by Sheila Stewart

27/7/2015

Ramlin Rose:
The Boatwoman's story

I love this book. I read my mother’s copy years ago and I picked it up again to dip into as part of a research project for my current novel, and I haven’t been able to put it down since. Sheila Stewart gives Rose such a distinctive voice that you are hooked from the first page.

Rose’s narrative is a fascinating, unsentimental account of the life (and death) of the men and women who worked ours canals during the first fifty years of the nineteenth century. It vividly recreates their culture, traditions, hardships and tragedies. But it also reveals the incredible love, pride and strong-bond between this close-knit, free-floating community who were isolated from land-locked Britain for generations.

Thoroughly recommended.

Review: 'The Seeker' by S. G. MacLean

4/7/2015

'The Seeker'
by S. G. MacLean
A review

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a great mystery novel, cleverly constructed and set in a period of history little-explored by decent novelists: Oliver Cromwell’s England.

Shona MacLean brilliantly evokes the fear and suspicion of the uneasy era that followed the execution of the King, Charles Stuart.

In her capable hands, London itself becomes a character in the novel. Scarred by the civil war, the capital is a brooding, uneasy warren of intrigue and deception, seething with spies, soldiers, exiles and assassins. It’s a place where no-one really knows the business or allegiance of their neighbours, their guests or their lovers. Maclean takes us on a whirlwind tour of the seedy underbelly of the capital and the whispering corridors of the palaces in pursuit of the killer.

It took a little while for Maclean to introduce the half dozen or so characters who were all credible suspects in the murder of John Winter, but it was worth the wait for the action to start. Once Seeker was on the trail of the murderer, I was hooked. Her enigmatic protagonist is a delight, as were all of the characters - especially the women. Each one of the women sought freedom of some kind, and none of them passively accepted their allotted role as victims of the brutal, hypocritical and puritanical Commonwealth.

Maclean’s prose is also a delight. She writes confidently and there were some real literary gems scattered throughout the novel that made me gasp with their brilliance. But the author never sacrificed the pace to her prose, and was firmly focused on her twisting plot and sub-plots.

Maclean is a worthy recipient of the Crime Writer Association’s 2015 Endeavor Award for historical crime fiction. I thoroughly recommend this novel.

Review: 'Lenin's Harem'

2/6/2015

by
William Burton McCormick

lenin's HaREM

REVIEW
Set in the small Baltic state of Latvia, ‘Lenin’s Harem’ is an epic and enthralling novel of love and war, which sweeps the reader and the characters through the first three tumultuous decades of the nineteenth century. William Burton McCormick brilliantly recreates the tensions and horrors of war-torn Latvia as it struggles to assert its identity and gain its independence, while being ripped apart by successive invaders and treacherous politics. McCormick’s prose has a lyricism which fascinates the reader and wards off revulsion as he steers us through the gas-filled trenches of World War One. This lyricism gives the novel a cinematic quality that reminded me of the Dunkirk scenes in Ian McEwan’s novel, ‘Atonement.’

‘Lenin’s Harem’ is told from the perspective of Wiktor Rooks, who becomes an outsider in his native country when his privileged life amongst the old aristocracy is swept away by revolution. Rooks is a troubled, but unremarkable man, and is all the more likeable and credible for his fallibility. The reader soon becomes enthralled with his uneasy search for identity, integrity and a place of belonging in a world that is drowning in a tide of war and political manipulation. His personal quest mirrors the larger struggle faced by Latvia.

But ‘Lenin’s Harem’ is also a story of hope. And thanks to McCormick’s skill, the reader always has hope for Wiktor Rooks. There is hope in the comradeship of his fellow Latvian soldiers. Hope in the love he shares with his feisty wife, Kaiva. Hope in his defiance of his family. McCormick doesn’t disappoint. In a final dramatic act of rebellion, Rooks completes his journey and discovers the man he is.

Thoroughly recommended.

Review: The Testament of Mariam by Ann Swinfen

19/6/2014

Thoroughly recommended to Historical Fiction lovers and people of all faiths or no faith

‘The Testament of Mariam’ is a fascinating and very clever novel which would appeal both those who follow Christianity and those who don’t. This is a superb historical novel which successfully transports us to life in First Century Galilee and Gaul. Dusty, sun-baked and oppressed to different degrees by the Romans, the landscape of the Swinfen’s novel is a character in its own right. Told from the point of view of Mariam, the elderly - and now dying - sister of Jesus, this imaginative and quiet novel almost underplays the most retold story of the Western world as we follow Mariam from her home village in Galilee to the vine-clad slopes of Gaul. Thoroughly researched, the novel explains some of the most glaring exaggerations of the Christ-story and provides an excellent twist to the role played by Judas in the betrayal of Jesus. Thoroughly recommended to Historical Fiction lovers, Christians and atheists alike.

Review: Rattleman

25/5/2013

Rattleman by George D. Shuman

This is a superb book. Not only does it have a great plot and a chilling serial killer but the effortless description of the Appalachian Mountains was outstanding. I was there, scrambling up those rocky hillsides, listening to the crack of the spruce and smelling the blood.

It took a little time for me to fall into step with the two main characters, Sheriff Wayne and Judy, but the detailed depiction of the killer kept me enthralled. Once the book got into its stride I was hooked and read the whole thing in twenty four hours. This is one of the best book I have read this year.

Rattleman on amazon

Book Review: 'The Magpie' by J.G.Harlond

1/4/2013

THE MAGPIE - J.G. Harlond

The Magpie is the story of Leo Kazan and Davina Dymond, lovers separated by continents, time and social convention. Set in the tumultuous years between the two World Wars when revolution ripped Russia apart and nationalism and the Home Rule movement began to dismantle 400 years of the British Raj in India, it is a love story played out on an international stage.

Leo is half Russian and half Indian, an orphan (or so he thinks) and a talented linguist. He is also a thief, attracted like a magpie to everything which glitters. He becomes the protégé of Sir Lionel Pinchcoffin, the District Political Officer in Bombay. Pinchcoffin recognises Leo’s talents and turns him into a spy. From an early age, Leo is immersed in the seedy world of international espionage and diamond smuggling. He travels from India to Europe and Russia but the most meaningful time in his life are those few stolen days he spends with Davina in London.

The Magpie is a fascinating novel here and Leo is a very likeable/loveable rogue. The book is richly immersed in historical context and I can see, feel, hear and smell India and Spain. It’s a fabulous piece of escapism for the reader, and a brilliant evocation of Colonial India, written with vigour and pace.