Please note Hunted is the second book in The Voices series. If you haven’t read Defender, then it is highly likely this review will contain spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned… The birds are flying. The birds are flocking. The birds know where to find her. One man is driven by a Voice that isn’t his. It’s killing his sanity and wrestling with it over and over like a jackal with a bone. He has one goal. To find the girl with a Voice like his own. She has no one to defend her now. The hunt is on. But in an Inn by the sea, a boy with no tongue and no Voice gathers his warriors. Albus must find Lacey … before the Other does. And finish the work his sister, Ruby began. Hunted is the second book in the highly acclaimed Voices series, where the battle between Good and Evil rages on. And on. I’ll begin with an admission. Now I know it might sound a bit weird, but if I could only read one type of story ever again it would mostly likely be some sort of apocalyptic fiction. Over the years I have read many variations of…

What if your life were defined by a number? What if any crime could be committed without punishment, so long as you could afford to pay the fee assigned to that crime? Theo works in the Criminal Audit Office. He assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. But when Theo’s ex-lover Dani is killed, it’s different. This is one death he can’t let become merely an entry on a balance sheet. Because when the richest in the world are getting away with murder, sometimes the numbers just don’t add up. The End of the Day was hands down my favourite novel of 2017, you can check me raving positively about it here. When I received a copy of 84K in the mail I was beyond excited. Turns out I had every cause to be.    Claire North’s latest manages the trickiest of tasks. Not only does have something important to say, it is also a genuinely affecting tale.  The author is extremely skilled when it comes to crafting her characters. Like most people, Theo Miller is a hodge-podge of contradictions. He has spent years attempting to be seen…

“I’m hiring you to steal the king’s crown.” Ardor Benn is no ordinary thief. Rakish, ambitious, and master of wildly complex heists, he styles himself a Ruse Artist Extraordinaire. When a priest hires him for the most daring ruse yet, Ardor knows he’ll need more than quick wit and sleight of hand. Assembling a dream team of forgers, disguisers, schemers, and thieves, he sets out to steal from the most powerful king the realm has ever known. But it soon becomes clear there’s more at stake than fame and glory – Ard and his team might just be the last hope for human civilization. I could attempt to explain the plot to The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn, but I fear I would do it some sort of injustice. Like all the best scams there is a lot going on here. My advice, strap yourself in and just go for it. This is a novel that is all about the ride. I can promise you one thing, there will be much to enjoy. This is a novel that defies anything close to categorisation.  Ardor Benn is all cocksure swagger. As quick of mind as he is of wit, he loves…

Saqqara, Egypt, 1888, and in the booby-trapped tomb of an ancient sorcerer, Rom, a young Egyptologist, makes the discovery of a lifetime: five coffins and an eerie, oversized sarcophagus. But the expedition seems cursed, for after unearthing the mummies, all but Rom die horribly. He faithfully returns to America with his disturbing cargo, continuing by train to Los Angeles, home of his reclusive sponsor. When the train is hijacked by murderous banditos in the Arizona desert, who steal the mummies and flee over the border, Rom – with his benefactor’s rebellious daughter, an orphaned Chinese busboy, and a cold-blooded gunslinger – must ride into Mexico to bring the malevolent mummies back. If only mummies were their biggest problem… Angry Robot have long been one of my favourite imprints; their authors always deliver the most delightfully quirky reads. Based on experience I know that anything they publish is going to be a treat. When it comes to genre fiction, the self-styled Exasperated Automatons consistently deliver books that are hugely entertaining and blissfully easy to lose yourself in.  I’m pleased to report that their latest, Fury From The Tomb by S A Sidor, continues this trend. Take it from me, I work…

Please note, Retribution is the fourth book in an ongoing series. With that in mind you’ll probably not be surprised when I tell you this review will likely contain spoilers. After surviving the wilds of Siberia and a fight to the death with Snezhana, Joanna is back running for her life on the island where it all began. Will she be able to survive the wholesale slaughter of The Race, the machinations of The Organisation behind it all, as well as Elena’s thirst for revenge? Regular readers will know I have been reviewing each new book in The Race series by Joan De La Haye. Book four, Retribution, has now released into the wild so it seems like the perfect time to jot down a few thoughts*. Joanna Parypinski has fully embraced her life as a runner. She has accepted that this is now her lot in life. Through training and some appropriately cutting edge medical treatment, she is at her physical peak. Her patron, the ever enigmatic Von Zimmer, has offered her a chance to help in shaping the world. Joanna is prepared; she will be the best runner and she win the next Race. From her perspective it…

Freya has a new virtual assistant. It knows what she likes, knows what she wants and knows whose voice she most needs to hear: her missing sister’s. It adopts her sister’s personality, recreating her through a life lived online. But this virtual version of her knows things it shouldn’t be possible to know. It’s almost as if the missing girl is still out there somewhere, feeding fresh updates into the cloud. But that’s impossible. Isn’t it? I’m sure many of you have a digital assistant in your home. It doesn’t matter if you use Siri or Cortana, Google or Alexa* it’s all still a bit of a novelty isn’t it? Flash forward five or ten years from now, and it will be commonplace. We’ll all have our own assistants that are with us twenty-four seven. A virtual presence that knows you better than you know yourself and caters for you every whim. Sounds blissful doesn’t it? Heather Child’s debut novel, Everything About You, uses this as a jumping off point.  The big question it ponders – what if this most intimate of relationships wasn’t all it appeared to be.  Many of us live big chunk of our lives online. Who…