Reviews

In this dystopian novel, Utopia, Zia lives with her mother in an apartment block, in a compound, and like most young people she starts questioning why they live as they do. She begins work in the hospital and through the connections she makes there starts to discover the sinister reasons behind the existence of the […]

I originally read the first two parts of Rum Hijack when they were published as separate editions and I have been waiting for the third part to come out. The story is now published as one complete work, which is much more satisfactory. I enjoy stories told in the first person, I like getting right inside a […]

I reached for The Affair recently during a sticky phase of writing. I needed something straightforward and familiar and I thought Reacher would fill that role perfectly. I’ve read one of these books before and enjoyed the military precision with which they are written. The Affair is a prequel, set six months before the events […]

I loved the first two parts of this series so was delighted when a friend bought me the final book in glorious paperback as a present. Living in the Shadows, like the rest of the series, is quality through and through. This part is set in the late 1960’s and Mary and Peter Schormann are living […]

In Honour and Obey there’s a killer, loose on the streets of London. He’s nicknamed The Slasher by the popular press, is targeting young blond women and, as all decent murderers do, he’s leaving his calling card at the scenes of crime. Strong women abound in this novel and I thoroughly enjoyed their interactions particularly […]

Here’s a tasty little something for the weekend… There is a warning at the beginning of the description for Behind Closed Doors which reads: This book is for ADULTS, Eighteen PLUS and for broadminded people. Please move on if you do not fit in these categories. Take that warning seriously, and don’t start moaning to anyone when […]

The students of Central College Nottingham are a prolific lot and within a course of, I believe, ten weeks they have managed to write, prepare and publish this anthology, Writes of Passage. Quite an achievement by the students, and their tutors. There is some really good stuff in here as well. The Rendezvous by Louise […]

As someone who loves watching other people I was really looking forward to reading The Girl on the Train. I thought the premise was terrific. Who hasn’t sat on a commuter train/any repetitive journey to work and imagined the lives of others as you pass by the same places day after day? There’s this bit […]

There are likeable and unlikeable characters in fiction and Ben Stephens is one of the latter, although it wasn’t always that way for me. At the beginning of Dark Fragments we meet a family man who dotes on his children and loves his wife. Quite rightly Ben is still grieving the death of his first wife, Alice, […]

Christmas means different things to different people. This is shown to great effect in The Twelve Days, a terrific anthology of short stories and poetry from the students of Central College Nottingham’s Intermediate Creative Writing course. Just Good Friends by N G Walters – right from the start of this story the descriptions are vivid, […]