Please note, Ghosts is book four in The Voices series. If you haven’t read the three books that precede this then there will most definitely be spoilers ahead.  Seven years ago, the voices came. Some people could hear and others despised them for it. As death and destruction spread, a ghostly figure was waiting in the shadows. Now the Flitting Man is ready to show his face – and no one is safe. Pilgrim was made for this broken world. He’s chosen his path and will stop at nothing to see it through. Lacey grew up in this changing world. She’s lost almost everything to the Flitting Man, but her fight isn’t over yet. Albus sees this world as others cannot. And the friends that he’s kept safe are facing terrible danger. Addison belongs to a very different world. She might just be the future, if she survives… If you are a regular reader of The Eloquent Page, then you know I normally write long rambling reviews about the books I read. I wax lyrical about how the writing made me feel. What I liked and what I thought of the characters, basically all manner of book-related waffle. I find…

The Earth is in environmental collapse. The future of humanity hangs in the balance. But a team of women are preparing to save it. Even if they’ll need to steal a spaceship to do it. Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation. The team is humanity’s last hope for survival, and Valerie has gathered the best women for the mission: an ace pilot who is one of the only astronauts ever to have gone to Mars; a brilliant engineer tasked with keeping the ship fully operational; and an experienced doctor to keep the crew alive. And then there’s Naomi Lovelace, Valerie’s surrogate daughter and the ship’s botanist, who has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity to step out of Valerie’s shadow and make a difference. The problem is that they’re not the authorized crew, even if Valerie was the one to fully plan the voyage. When their mission is stolen from them, they steal the ship bound for the new planet. But when things start going wrong on board, Naomi begins to…

Please note, Survivors is the third book in an ongoing series. If you haven’t read books one and two then what follows is likely to contain some potentially spoilery type elements. Consider yourself duly warned.  There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who hear voices, and those who want to silence them. Pilgrim is a man with a past he can’t remember. When he wakes alone in a shallow grave, there is a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. It explains who he is and what he’s done. It tells him he has one purpose: to find a girl named Lacey. As Pilgrim is drawn north to Missouri in search of Lacey, he must also travel back to where it all began – to those he left behind. War is coming, and Pilgrim is going to need all the allies he can get. Chances are that if you’re reading this, then you’ve already discovered this series of books and, like me, you’ve been waiting eagerly for Survivors to arrive. The good news is that the wait has been well worth it. G X Todd is back with another slice of post-apocalyptic drama, and it…

Please note, The Poison Song is the third book in The Winnowing Flame trilogy. If you haven’t read books one and two then what follows will likely contain spoilery type information. Don’t say I didn’t warn you in advance. All is chaos. All is confusion. The Jure’lia are weak, but the war is far from over. Ebora was once a glorious city, defended by legendary warriors and celebrated in song. Now refugees from every corner of Sarn seek shelter within its crumbling walls, and the enemy that has poisoned their land won’t lie dormant for long. The deep-rooted connection that Tormalin, Noon and the scholar Vintage share with their Eboran war-beasts has kept them alive so far. But with Tor distracted, and his sister Hestillion hell-bent on bringing ruthless order to the next Jure’lia attack, the people of Sarn need all the help they can get. Noon is no stranger to playing with fire and knows just where to recruit a new – and powerful – army. But even she underestimates the epic quest that is to come. It is a journey wrought with pain and sacrifice – a reckoning that will change the face of Sarn forever. When it…

In the ring, Cameron King is known as The Hunter. A celebrated champion. A warrior. But when her brother, science genius Nate, deliberately crashes the car they’re in and vanishes without trace Cameron is left with a career in ruins, a reconstructed body and one burning question: why? 18 months later, working to find bail-jumping fugitives, Cameron discovers a dead body – apparently killed with her gun. As a detective comes through the door, she receives a panicked call from her missing brother: ‘They’re coming, Cam. Get out.’ Sucked into a lethal and sinister conspiracy hidden in the darkest shadows of power, Cameron is forced to fight her toughest, bloodiest battle yet – not only to survive, but to uncover the terrifying truth. In my experience, action thrillers fall into one of two camps. First you have those wonderfully insane big budget affairs that dance between the realms of action and sci fi. You know the sort of thing, Matthew Reilly’s novels are a perfect example. Unstoppable heroes halo jumping out of exploding airplanes straight into a dastardly ego-maniac’s underground secret lair made from a hollowed-out volcano. Great fun and hugely enjoyable but, let’s be 100% honest, utterly bonkers. This…

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…

Please note, before proceeding any further, The Bitter Twins is the second part of The Winnowing Flame trilogy. If you haven’t read part one then it is likely this review may contain something akin to minor spoilers. Don’t say you weren’t suitably warned! The Ninth Rain has fallen, the Jure’lia have returned, and with Ebora a shadow of its former self, the old enemy are closer to conquering Sarn than ever. Tormalin the Oathless and the Fell-Witch Noon have their hands full dealing with the first war-beasts to be born in Ebora for nearly three hundred years. But these are not the great mythological warriors of old; hatched too early and with no link to their past lives, the war-beasts have no memory of the many battles they have fought and won, and no concept of how they can possibly do it again. The key to uniting them, according to the scholar Vintage, may lie in a part of Sarn no one really believes exists, but finding it will mean a dangerous journey at a time of war… Meanwhile, Hestillion is trapped on board the corpse moon, forced into a strange and uneasy alliance with the Jure’lia queen. Something terrifying…

Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In Western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family–and to locate his teenage daughter, who has disappeared. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra–a ship assumed lost to the darkest currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence. Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence or insight that will crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself. I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow back when it was released back in 2014. I loved it.  I’ve been waiting patiently for Tom Sweterlitsch’s next book and…

It makes us. It destroys us. The Feed is everywhere. It can be accessed by anyone, at any time. Every interaction, every emotion, every image can be shared through it. Tom and Kate use The Feed, but they have resisted addiction to it. And this will serve them well when The Feed collapses. Until their six-year-old daughter, Bea, goes missing. Because how do you find someone in a world devoid of technology? And what happens when you can no longer trust that your loved ones are really who they claim to be? Imagine that there was a single social media network, far more invasive than what we know now. In The Feed everyone is connected to everything. You can speak to friends and family immediately; all knowledge is available to you, humanity lives in a golden age. People’s emotions don’t need to be second-guessed anymore, you just know what they are feeling. Sounds pretty wonderful doesn’t it? You’d rely on this technological miracle wouldn’t you? I’d imagine you would give yourself over to the experience. Maybe you’d discover you were not able to function without it.  Now, imagine that The Feed was suddenly gone. Everything you had taken for granted…

A storm is coming… Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow’s best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself. Life as Wednesday’s bodyguard, driver, and errand boy /is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined—it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. Along the way Shadow will learn that the past never dies; that everyone, including his beloved Laura, harbors secrets; and that dreams, totems, legends, and myths are more real than we know….

Meryam and Adam take risks for a living. But neither is prepared for what lies in the legendary heights of Mount Ararat, Turkey. First to reach a massive cave revealed by an avalanche, they discover the hole in the mountain’s heart is really an ancient ship, buried in time. A relic that some fervently believe is Noah’s Ark. Deep in its recesses stands a coffin inscribed with mysterious symbols that no one in their team of scholars, archaeologists and filmmakers can identify. Inside is a twisted, horned cadaver. Outside a storm threatens to break. As terror begins to infiltrate their every thought, is it the raging blizzard that chases them down the mountain – or something far worse? Isn’t just always the way; you discover a centuries old burial site that could hold secrets relating to one of ancient history’s biggest mysteries and before you know it a blizzard has arrived, everyone is trapped and one by one they start to die. Is there a deranged killer amongst them, or is there something far more sinister? Christopher Golden’s latest, Ararat, is a masterclass in slow burning tension. The thing I like most about this author’s writing style is the attention…

The great city of Ebora once glittered with gold. Now its streets are stalked by wolves. Tormalin the Oathless has no taste for sitting around waiting to die while the realm of his storied ancestors falls to pieces – talk about a guilt trip. Better to be amongst the living, where there are taverns full of women and wine. When eccentric explorer, Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon, offers him employment, he sees an easy way out. Even when they are joined by a fugitive witch with a tendency to set things on fire, the prospect of facing down monsters and retrieving ancient artefacts is preferable to the abomination he left behind. But not everyone is willing to let the Eboran empire collapse, and the adventurers are quickly drawn into a tangled conspiracy of magic and war. For the Jure’lia are coming, and the Ninth Rain must fall… Last week I read Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. Its great fun fantasy, lots of axes, fighting and what-not. You get the gist. This week I’m reading more fantasy, it’s also brilliant but in an entirely different way. The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams is a far more cerebral affair, and…

In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road. The moment locks them together. Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet. These voices have purpose. And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet. I’ve said this in the past and I’ll say it again now – I have a soft spot in my heart for apocalyptic fiction. I love nothing better than a good apocalypse. Last year I read about half a dozen books that had a distinctly end of the world type vibe. The Fireman by Joe Hill, The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, and The Last of Us by Rob Ewing were all extremely good examples. Why this fascination with the end of all things as we know it? It’s simple. I am consumed with wanting/needing to know what happens next. For me, the very best examples of apocalyptic fiction suggest to us how humanity will change. It is all about questioning our place in the universe. What…