Please note, The Bone Fields is the fourth book in The Pantheon series. With that in mind, it is highly likely the book-related waffling that follows will contain some minor spoilers. Dont say I didn’t warn you! THE GAME From the beginning, The Pantheon has been a secret society of bloodshed and order. Modern-day gladiators abandon their lives, fall into rank and battle to the death – cheered on and funded by online watchers. THE PLAYER Tyler Maitland was recruited to fight in the Games, but his real ambition is finding his missing sister-even if it means bringing down The Pantheon for good. THE END The start of the Twentieth Season delivers never-before-matched teams to the fields of eastern Europe, where a hidden force will blow the truth of the Games wide open, once and for all… THE FINAL SEASON STARTS NOW. It seems like only yesterday we were first introduced to Tyler Maitland. Directionless and downbeat, his life was a matter of just existing on a day-to-day basis. Then he discovered the world of The Pantheon, a secret game backed by the world’s great and good. A world-spanning league of the most ferocious warriors pitted against one another for…

Superstitions only survive if people believe in them… Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen – until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. It seems a nameless fear stalks the streets, but nobody will talk – nobody except one little girl. Her words strike dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer… That night, Ben and Chloe see a sinister figure watching them. He is the Creeper. He is the nameless fear in the night. Stories keep him alive. And nothing will keep him away… For a reader like me, The Creeper by A.M. Shine is the perfect nightmare fuel. I have a tendency towards night terrors and on more than one occasion I’ve woken in the middle of the night utterly convinced there is someone in the room standing over me*. With that in mind, I am either absolutely the worst or…

Please note, The Hastening Storm is the third book in an on-going series. If you haven’t read what has come before, The Wolf Mile and The Blood Isles, then the book-related waffle that follows will contain something akin to minor spoilery-type stuff.   Live by the rules. Die by the rules. Or break them and take your chances in the chaos that follows… The Pantheon Games are the biggest underground event in the world, with millions watching online as modern-day recruits battle to the death with weapons of the ancient world. Tyler Maitland left his life behind to search for his sister, who disappeared after joining the Pantheon’s Edinburgh chapter. But one year on, he’s still no closer to finding her… After the shocking climax of the Grand Battle, Tyler must now find a way to forge a new brotherhood amongst his enemies. There will be new identities, new teammates, a new cause… but the same blood will flow on the streets while those at the top enjoy the show and count the money rolling in. This season will be like no other. Tyler must accept a new mission, one that hasn’t been attempted in twenty years of the Pantheon. His…

Everyone is not as they seem in this fantasy novel, replete with war, witchcraft and secrets. Christophor Morden lives by night. His day-brother, Alexsander, knows only the sun. They are two souls in a single body, in a world where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun. Night-brother or day-sister, one never sees the light, the other knows nothing of the night. Early one evening, Christophor is roused by a call to the city prison. A prisoner has torn his eyes out and cannot say why. Yet worse: in the sockets that once held his eyes, teeth are growing. The police suspect the supernatural, so Christophor, a member of the king’s special inspectorate, is charged with finding the witch responsible. Night-by-night, Christophor’s investigation leads him ever further from home, toward a backwards village on the far edge of the kingdom. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more his day-brother’s actions frustrate him. Who is Alexsander protecting? What does he not want Christophor to discover? And all the while, an ancient and apocalyptic ritual creeps closer to completion… It’s the premise that is going to capture your attention initially when it comes to Equinox by…

A BURNING PYRE The smell of roasting meat alerts police to squatters in an abandoned London factory. But when they arrive, the place is empty… except for a gruesome pile of scorched human heads. AN ANCIENT RITUAL DS Jamila Patel and DC Jerry Pardoe have solved bizarre crimes before, but nothing as spooky as this. Arcane markings on the factory wall lead them to a terrifying cult in thrall to a Neolithic god. A god who demands the ultimate sacrifice from his followers. A CULT OF CANNIBALS Now Londoners are being abducted off the city streets, to be mutilated, roasted and eaten. Can Patel and Pardoe save the next victim from this hideous fate? Or will they themselves become a human sacrifice? Last week we had a washed-out, alcoholic German hostage negotiator breaking all the rules. This week it’s a barbaric cannibal cult hiding in the dark streets of our nation’s capital. It’s true what they say, the life of a book reviewer is never boring. The good news is that The Shadow People by Graham Masterton is proper old school horror with some serious bite*. As expected, things are pretty damned visceral from the get-go. Within a couple of…

Good morning, Berlin. It’s 7.35 AM. And you’re listening to your biggest nightmare. This morning a dangerous psychopath is playing an old game with new rules. He’s taken six people hostage at Berlin’s leading radio station. Every hour, a telephone will ring somewhere in Berlin. Maybe it will be in your house. Or your office. And if you can’t play the game, a hostage will die. Renowned police psychologist Ira Samin is rushed to the scene, where she is forced to negotiate live on air. With the nation listening, the kidnapper makes his sole demand: find his fiancee and bring her to the station. But she is dead. Burnt to a crisp in a devastating car accident eight months ago. Facing an impossible demand and a police commander who seems hell-bent on keeping secrets, Ira must race against the clock to resolve one of the hardest negotiations of her career. All the while, somewhere in Berlin… a telephone is ringing. From the outside, there is something mesmeric about a hostage situation. It feels almost voyeuristic. We’re repelled but transfixed in the same breath. Classic movies like The Taking of Pelham 123, Dog Day Afternoon and Inside Man capture that rabbit…

Please note The Blood Isles is a direct sequel to The Wolf Mile. If you haven’t read book one in the Pantheon series then what follows may contain some minor spoilers. New Season. New Rules. Same deadly game… The Pantheon Games are the biggest underground event in the world, followed by millions online. New recruits must leave behind their twenty-first century lives and vie for dominance in a gruelling battle to the death armed only with ancient weapons – and their wits. Last season’s new recruits Tyler and Lana have lived to fight another day, but now they face a series of even more lethal clashes before the Grand Battle that will end the Season. It’s survival of the fittest, in the most brutal fashion imaginable. Lana must face the demons of her past, and Tyler has the mother of all targets on his back. To my never-ending shame, I was late to the party when it came to the first novel in the Pantheon series. Though it has been around for a while, I only read The Wolf Mile by C F Barrington back in August this year. No such tardiness when it comes to the sequel, however. I…

Bankrolled by the world’s wealthy elite and followed by thousands online, two teams of warriors vie for dominance … and the streets of Edinburgh run with blood. Into this secret struggle steps Tyler Maitland, seeking his lost sister, and Lana Cameron, grieving her dead child. When they are accosted by figures in black hoodies and each handed a silver amulet, they recognize the Triple Horn of Odin – the talisman of the Valhalla Horde. They are being recruited into the great game known as The Pantheon. And one day they will change everything. Now they must risk their lives and join the ranks of seven ancient warrior teams which inhabit this illicit world. Their journey will be more wondrous and horrifying than anything they could have dreamed, taking each of them to the depths of their souls … and testing them to breaking point as they search for loved ones and for the meaning in their lives. Let the Season begin. I was intrigued by The Wolf Mile by C F Barrington as soon as I read the book blurb. Viking berserkers and Greek Hoplite clans facing off against one another on modern city streets. To the winner goes all…

Britannia, AD 535. The Romans have gone. While their libraries smoulder, roads decay and cities crumble, men with swords pick over civilisation’s carcass, slaughtering and being slaughtered in turn. This is the story of just such a man. Like the others, he had a sword. He slew until slain. Unlike the others, we remember him. We remember King Arthur. This is the story of a land neither green nor pleasant. An eldritch isle of deep forest and dark fell haunted by swaithes, boggarts and tod-lowries, Robin-Goodfellows and Jenny Greenteeths, and predators of rarer appetite yet. This is the story of a legend forged from a pack of self-serving, turd-gilding, weasel-worded lies told to justify foul deeds and ill-gotten gains. I’ve always been a fan of legends and mythology, British folklore being of particular interest, so when I heard Lavie Tidhar was writing a book based on the Arthurian cycle I have to admit I got a bit excited. It turns out my excitement was more than a little justified. By Force Alone has been released this week and it is everything I hoped it would be and more. The novel follows Arthur through his entire life. From Uther Pendragon’s tryst…

Rex is a Good Dog. He loves humans. He hates enemies. He’s utterly obedient to Master. He’s also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he’s part of a Multi-form Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, Southeastern Mexico. Rex is a genetically engineered bioform, a deadly weapon in a dirty war. He has the intelligence to carry out his orders and feedback implants to reward him when he does. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he’s got to kill a lot of enemies. But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow bioforms even have a right to exist? And what happens when Rex slips his leash? 2017 seems to have been quite the year when it comes to animal protagonists in genre fiction. Dogs of War is the third book in the last two months I’ve read that…