Books
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Ragged Alice Review
Gareth L Powell officially the nicest man on twitter and award winning sci fi author has turned his considerable skills to crime in this wonderful novella. Set in the small welsh town of Pontyrhudd DCI Holly Craig returns to her home town to investigate a murder. Things quickly unravel as a spate of murders threaten to ruin her career but all is not as it seems as the murderer seems to be copying a murder from decades earlier. Ragged Alice is fab. I love Holly Craig she’s a damaged-yet-brilliant detective with an ability to see someone’s soul and ascertain whether they are lying. How she came by this ability is…
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The Goblin Emperor
Elves like a sit down dinner and Goblins like a buffet.
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What have I been reading
Magic Trees, Dragons, secret societies of bad ass women who will kill you. Matrilinial lineages. Queendoms. GET IN MY EYEBALLS.
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Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky – a Squee post.
Its rare that I feel compelled to write about something I’m reading before I’ve finished reading it but Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time has crawled under my skin and it is preying on my mind so I need to tell you all why.
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Review: Shattered Minds by Laura Lam
Shattered Minds by Laura Lam is the second of her Pacifica novels. It isn’t a sequel to False Hearts but it does have links between the two. Shattered minds is a tense thriller with a cast of flawed characters. Lam conjures a tense yet vibrant world and creates characters the reader can empathise with even when they are dark. Carina is an ex neuroscientist with a dark secret. A zeal addict on the slippery slope to oblivion when one of her ex-colleagues, Mark hacks her zealscape to give her information about her old company Sudice. She knows he must already be dead. This is fast paced and feels quite cyberpunk.…
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Review: 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough
13 Minutes is an incredible novel. Sarah Pinborough’s writing really got under my skin in a way that very few authors really manage to do. It is about the shifting allegiances that make up teenaged girls friendships and frankly it is terrifying.
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Review: The Silver Tide by Jen Williams
Trilogies are tricky things to work properly they should do more than simply be one long story there should be themes that ebb and flow. Narratives which build and peak and then build again. I usually count myself lucky if the trilogy I read is three decent books which hold together well. And then there’s Jen William’s Copper Cat trilogy which I am so deeply in love with right now it is a little bit obscene.
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The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick – Review
This is the second part to the trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I have not read first part The Summer Crown and unusually for starting a series mid-way I don’t feel punished for not reading it. Ailenor (Eleanor) is already married to Henry at the beginning of the novel and whilst she is very fond of him she finds his lack of respect to her ideas galling. She is constantly reminding him that she is more than his brood mare to which he basically says yes dear. In that respect Ailenor feels very modern, she is very clever and there is a real sense that she knows her worth. Henry…
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The books I do not read
I am a recovering book snob. I’m in the process of overcoming the baggage I picked up whilst studying English Lit at university. I’m now able to read widely not caring for some invisible judge and yet there is one line I do not want to cross. Why can’t I read romance? That’s not to say I haven’t read any I’ve dabbled in the paranormal romance end of things and faeries who like to get hot and heavy. But straight romances in genre terms are problematic. A lot of this is bound up in my heavy allergic reaction to the tag chick lit. I have never been a chick, I…
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Review: Planetfall by Emma Newman
Planetfall is a breath-taking sci-fi debut from Emma Newman. It is a claustrophobic look at life in a human colony on a far flung planet with utopian ideals. The colony itself is self-sustaining with all waste being recycled. At the centre of it all is Ren the colony’s most accomplished 3-D printing engineer. Along with Mack, the closest thing the colony has to a leader they harbour a secret about its founding, one that has the power to destroy all they have achieved in the last twenty years. The arrival of Sung-Soo the grandson of Lee Suh-Mi the pathfinder, mission founder and ex-lover of Ren sparks change in this fragile ecosystem, one…