On Leo’s sixteenth birthday. something bad happened. Something so traumatic his mind fractured, and darkness filled the crack. Twenty years on and the crack is a canyon. The schizophrenic hallucination that offered sympathy has taken to mocking him, and the memory of that long-ago birthday claws at his darkest fears, overshadowing even the murder of his younger brother Davey. But just when Leo thinks life can’t get and worse… Leo dies.  A demon returns after twenty years. An Angel follows close behind.  Leo is caught in an age-old conflict, his past lying at the dark heart of it all.  Leo Stamp is not a happy man. He has beautiful home, a thriving business and a car to die for but he is haunted by the ghosts of his childhood. The death of his sibling weighs heavy on his shoulders and has stayed with him for decades. Alone at night he voices his anxieties to a poster of James Bond on his wall. He is seeking answers to the horrors have plagued his life. His mental state continues to deteriorate and by page fifty Leo is dead. When he is given the opportunity at a second chance at life that is…

Buried in the Peruvian desert, sealed beneath a Greek-inscribed stone, lies a legendary relic which may hold the key to life itself, By extracting its DNA, Richard Ridley of Manifold Genetics hopes to bio-engineer the ultimate weapon – an army of soldiers who regenerate and continue to fight without stopping. The prefect killing machines… Enter Special Forces commander Jack “King” Sigler and his “Chess Team” of highly trained operators. Under the president’s orders, they must intercept Ridley’s genetic terrorists – and stop the unstoppable – using all the fire power at their command. But even the Chess Team is no match for a legend the refuses to die…and an enemy that can’t be killed. I have noticed an interesting trend over the last couple of years. When it comes to the thriller genre there is a definite lean toward including more fantastical elements in novels. Now it is true to say that some purists may find this cross-pollination unwelcome.  I, for one, totally disagree with that. This change appears to have reinvigorated the genre and opened up whole new avenues of storytelling. Pulse is a great example of this cross over writing. The novel blends together the high levels of action you would…

Occasionally I manage to convince Mrs Cheesecake to write a review for me. This is her latest review. I’d just like to take a moment to thank her for her work. The enduring love story of Anthony and Cleopatra has been retold many times throughout history. In Queen of Kings, Headley has given this famous tale a darker and more mythological twist. We join the lovers at the point in history when Octavian Caesar, great nephew of the late Julius, is camped outside the city of Alexandria. Octavian sends a false message to Cleopatra’s beloved Anthony and he kills himself believing his queen has betrayed him. On discovering the deceit, Cleopatra is driven to making an impossible deal, and uses dark magic to summon one of the old gods, the goddess Sekhmet, and strikes a bargain – her soul for her husband’s life. Sadly, through an unfortunate accident, the resurrected Anthony dies again.  One could say, to lose your husband once is unfortunate; to lose him again is careless. As is often the case when humans make deals with deities, the consequences of the bargain are never fully realised until it is too late. The last pharaoh of Egypt becomes…

Renegade City. Futurist Gothika. Mecca of the damned. Where uber rock-band, Origin, is deified and the world’s dark sub-cultures coexist under the umbrella faith of ‘Belief’. But Roses, the great, Gothic messiah is dead, the tribes are in turmoil, and Renegade’s own home-bred rebels, the Drifters, are quickly becoming a law unto themselves. The last thing that Druid, Origin’s drummer and reclusive high lord of the Drathcor, wants to do is hunt his brother’s killer, especially since he’s not sure of foul play, or even the purity of his motives. Against all of his expectations, however, he is soon embroiled with the underbelly of dissension, dirty politics, and a non-believer as jaded with Renegade’s great and secret show as he is – a black-eyed girl named Jezebel.  Druid is tasked with saving the whole city. Street punk, Jezebel will settle for saving her on brother. Ever since Harish in touch with his inner-animal and left her with the scars to prove it, she has made her quest to return him to the fold. One bleak winter’s night, she succeeds in tracking him to the festering Gothic ruin of the south watchtower, home to the very same ghosts that Druid is…

Jordan Reyne, New Zealand’s premiere   bloodthirsty Celtic rock and machine sounds superhero,   has teamed up with Anarchy Books to bring you a dazzling   short story writing competition!   Jordan Reyne’s new album, Children of a Factory Nation, is being released September 2011 and follows a family who lived in Wales in the late 1800s during the Industrial Revolution. Like many alive in their time, they faced problems relating to difficult working conditions, poverty, and the tyranny of circumstance. This album constructs stories from facts known about Johnathan, Mary, their children Molly & Thomas, and grandchild Wynne.   The competition is to write a short story surrounding any character or sets of characters from Children of a Factory Nation using Jordan Reyne’s lyrics or the facts about their real life counterparts as a starting point. The competition will be judged by Andy Remic, SFF author and co-owner of Anarchy Books, John Jarrold, esteemed agent with decades of experience in the publishing industry as both editor and agent, David Bradley, editor of the fabulous SFX magazine,Lee Harris, editor at Angry Robot Books, James Lovegrove, SFF New York Times bestselling author,Gary McMahon, rising star of the Horror Genre (and all-round nice-guy beer drinker), Jared Shurinof popular online magazine Pornokitsch, and…

The Beast is loose. After countless years trapped inside the World House, its sinister prisoner is loose and pure evil has been loosed upon the world. Now the motley band of explorers, treasure hunters and thrill seekers must unit to imprison it once more.   Nothing to it… A little less than a month ago I was sat in the audience for the raffle at Alt.Fiction and Restoration by Guy Adams came up as one of the prizes. The affable Mr Adams was hosting said raffle and when his latest book appeared he made the suggestion that as this was a direct sequel to The World House it might be a good idea not to jump straight into Restoration but try is predecessor first. Never one to shy away from a challenge I immediately decided to ignore his advice and read Restoration without reading The World House first. I was curious to see if it was possible to read this sequel without any prior knowledge. I was willing to accept that I may miss some of the references to the first novel but I was still wanted to see if I could enjoy this second novel under its own merit. Set apart…

Imagine a place where all your nightmares become real. Dark urban streets where crime, debt and violence are not the only things to fear. Picture a housing project that is a gateway to somewhere else; a realm where ghosts and monsters stir hungrily in the shadows. Welcome to the Concrete Grove.  This deprived area is Hailey’s new home, but when an ancient entity notices her, it becomes something much more threatening. She is the only one who can help her mother as she joins in a dangerous dance with loan-shark Monty Bright. Only Hailey can see the truth of Tom’s darkest desires as he tries to become part of their family. And only Hailey can lead them all to the heart of the estate where something older than this land stirs and begins to wake… Hailey and her mother, Lana are trying their best to get by. They have fallen on hard times after a family tragedy and each have ended up way out of their depth. Hailey is in thrall to the strange powers that control the Grove while Lana has fallen foul of the local gangster, Monty Bright. Lana is put through the emotional and physical ringer as…

His former CIA colleagues want him dead and Interpol want to arrest him, but all Hawker wants to do is find a way out. Government agent Danielle Laidlaw may be his only solution. She needs a pilot for her secret mission to find the lost Mayan city of Tulan Zuyu. In return for Hawker’s services, she promises a way home that doesn’t involve a body bag. But, as an unseen enemy stalks the rainforests, leaving battered corpses in its wake, they are about to discover that they’re not the only people looking Tulan Zuyu and the secrets it may hold. When the seasons change, my attitude towards books tends to shift slightly. During the months that we laughably call the great British Summer I enjoy a bit of what I like to call beach reading. What is beach reading you may ask? Well, I suppose the best way to describe it is books, that tend to fall into the category thriller, that don’t require much in the way of emotional investment. Now that is not to say that they are bad books, far from it. They offer the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster, or a thrill ride. You enjoy…