Fergus’s world changes forever the day his car crashes near the remote village of Allingley. Traumatised by his near-death experience, he stays to work at the local stables as he recovers from his injuries. He will discover a gentler pace of life, fall in love and be targeted for human sacrifice. Clare Harvey’s life will never be the same either. The young archaeologist’s dream find the peat-preserved body of a Saxon warrior is giving her nightmares. She can tell that the warrior was ritually murdered, Read more […]

Fashion Beast follows Doll Seguin, a sassy coat-checker who escapes into the carefree lifestyle of fashion, music and decadence while the world outside fears an oncoming nuclear war. It’s a re-telling of the classic fable Beauty and the Beast that immerses readers in the rich, living characters of its dystopian future setting.  I’d never heard of Fashion Beast up until very recently. Not a massive surprise really, I was eleven years old when it was originally published. At first glance it doesn’t Read more […]

Nineteenth century London is the centre of a vast British Empire. Airships ply the skies and Queen Victoria presides over three-quarters of the known world – including the East Coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775. London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast. Gideon Smith dreams of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, told in Gideon’s favourite “penny dreadful.” When Gideon’s Read more […]

Carthage, 146 BC. This is the story of Fabius Petronius Secundus – Roman legionary and centurion – and of his general Scipio Aemilianus, and his rise to power: from his first battle against the Macedonians, that seals the fate of Alexander the Great’s successors, to total war in North Africa and the Siege of Carthage. Scipio’s success brings him admiration and respect, but also attracts greed and jealousy – for the closest allies can become the bitterest of enemies. And then there is the Read more […]

To claim the powers of the legendary golden lotus, Tori Harding, a Victorian woman, must journey to Bharata, with its magics, intrigues and ghosts, to claim her fate, and face a choice between two suitors and two irreconcilable realms.  It is 1857. After millennia of seafaring, and harried by the kraken of the deep, in a monumental feat of engineering Anglica has built a stupendous bridge to Bharata. Bharata’s magical powers are despised as superstition, but its diamonds and cotton are eagerly Read more […]

Thomas is thirty-two. He comes from the small town of Barkley. He has a wife there, Sarah, and a child, Mary; good solid names from the Good Book. And he is on his way home from the war, where he has been serving as a conscripted soldier. Thomas is also dead – he is one of the Walkin’. And Barkley does not suffer the wicked to live. I often hear the cry “Oh no, not another zombie novel”. Now I’ll be the first to admit that there has been a glut of books over the last couple of years featuring Read more […]

There’s a murderer loose in Greystones, a small estuary village tucked against the wintry, wooded trails of O’Halloran Hill. The gory body count begins to rise, sending the media into an all-out feeding frenzy. The village is swamped with police and onlookers, and everybody wants to catch ‘The Vampire Killer’. While the hunt is on James Stixx and his partner-in-crime, Faye Burns discover that beneath the surface is a whole different story, a mystery that goes back decades. The teenagers Read more […]

It’s about high time we had a guest review so here’s one right now. Something a bit different today though, Mr Sam Strong has pricked up his ears and has taken a listen to an audio book. A killer is on the loose . . . Joel is fascinated by the art of Rithmatics – with its lines of power and ability to bring chalk drawings to life – but only a few have the gift and he is not one of them. When Rithmatic students from Joel’s school start disappearing, he is keen to investigate. Since he’s Read more […]

Please note Pigeonwings is a direct sequel to the events in Clovenhoof. I would advise reading book one before losing yourself in the chaotic nonsense that is book two. Oh, and this review might contain spoilers if you haven’t read book one. As punishment for his part in an attempted coup in Heaven, the Archangel Michael is banished to Earth. The holiest of the angelic host has to learn to live as a mortal, not an easy job when you’ve got Satan as a next-door neighbour. Michael soon finds Read more […]

Control is the direct sequel to Shift. If you haven’t read that first then it is possible, in this reality, that there may be minor spoilers ahead in this review.  Scott Tyler is not like other teenagers. With a single thought he can alter reality around him. And he can stop anyone else from doing the same. That’s why he’s so important to ARES, the secret government agency that regulates other kids like him: Shifters. They’ve sent him on a mission. To track down the enigmatic Frank Read more […]

Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD’s Homicide Special Section receives an anonymous call asking him to go to a specific web address – a private broadcast. Hunter logs on and a show devised for his eyes only immediately begins. But the caller doesn’t want Detective Hunter to just watch, he wants him to participate, and refusal is simply not an option. Forced to make a sickening choice, Hunter must sit and watch as an unidentified victim is tortured and murdered live on the Internet.   The Read more […]

London, 1859. Novice detective, Campbell Lawless, stumbles onto the trail of Berwick Skelton, an elusive revolutionary, threatening to bring the city to its knees with devilish acts of terror. Thrust into a lethal, intoxicating world of sabotage and royal scandal – and aided by a gang of street urchins and a vivacious librarian – Lawless sets out to capture his underworld nemesis before he unleashes his final vengeance. Murder. Vice. Pollution. Delays on the Tube. Some things never change… I’ve Read more […]

1971. A middle-aged man, wracked with grief, walks along the beach at Whitstable in Kent.  A boy walks approaches him and, taking him for the famous vampire-hunter Doctor Van Helsing from the Hammer movies, asks for his help. Because he believes his stepfather really is a vampire… I like the premise of Whitstable, it’s most definitely intriguing. Taking a celebrity like Peter Cushing and crafting a horrific tale around events of his life seems like an ideal fit. The first element of the Read more […]