In the iconic film Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels from the 1980s to the 1950s, changing the path of his parents’ destiny. Now fans of the movie can travel back even further to the 16th century, where the Bard of Avon unveils his latest masterpiece: William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future! Every scene and line of dialogue from the hit is recreated here, with authentic Shakespearean rhyme, meter and stage directions, and with jokes and Easter eggs for movie fans and Shakespearean buffs alike. By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll be convinced that Shakespeare had a flux capacitor of his own, and traveled to our era so he could pen this time-tossed tale. Greetings fellow bibliophile, tis I, Pablo Cheesecake with another exploration of all things literary.  There art rare times when reviewing the latest manuscript of a wordsmith that gives me the opportunity to flex mine own creative muscles. Today, for the first (and likely only time) I present to you a critical missive appraising the latest tome of one William Shakespeare*, Get Thee… Back to the Future! Without a shadow of doubt, most amongst the assembled throng will have a passing fore-knowledge of…

In the 1990s, heavy metal band Dürt Würk was poised for breakout success — but then lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom as Koffin, leaving his fellow bandmates to rot in rural Pennsylvania. Two decades later, former guitarist Kris Pulaski works as the night manager of a Best Western – she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Everything changes when she discovers a shocking secret from her heavy metal past: Turns out that Terry’s meteoric rise to success may have come at the price of Kris’s very soul. This revelation prompts Kris to hit the road, reunite with the rest of her bandmates, and confront the man who ruined her life. It’s a journey that will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a Satanic rehab center and finally to a Las Vegas music festival that’s darker than any Mordor Tolkien could imagine. A furious power ballad about never giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul…where only a girl with a guitar can save us all. I’m old…

Please note Countdown City is the direct sequel to The Last Policeman. If you haven’t read the first book in this series then this review will likely contain spoilers. Got it? Good, now forward to the end of the world.  There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank’s days of solving crimes are over…until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband.  Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees.  Countdown City presents another fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse–and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond “whodunit.” What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing…

The world is about to end – would you investigate a murder?  An asteroid is about to collide with the Earth in six months time, and wipe us all out. Would you give up your life and go of to fulfill your ambition, take solace in drunken pleasure, live in fear, or solidly carry on doing what you do? Detective Hank Palace faces this stark question, and as others walk away from their jobs he carries on. A murder has been committed, and it is his job to solve it – problem is, none of his colleges believe it is a murder, and neither does the coroner – just Hank’s instinct, and in a city that has a dozen or more suicides a week even that might be wrong. What’s the point in solving murders if we are all going to die anyway? As Hank investigates further, undercurrents begin to surface –who was the victim obsessed with the asteroid? Did he know something about it that the rest of us don’t? Is there a conspiracy afoot? In a world where politicians have run of to the Bahamas for one last sun-drenched beach holiday, where the US Army runs internment camps…

Sleep Tight. Susan and Alex Wendt are the prefect couple in search of the perfect brownstone – and they find their dream house in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. Sure, the landlady is eccentric, and the handyman drops cryptic remarks about the previous tenants. But the rent is so low; it’s too good to pass up. Big mistake: Susan soon discovers the brownstone is crawling with bedbugs – or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists the building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad – until a more sinister explanation presents itself: She may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from hell. On the face of it Susan and Alex have it all. He is a professional photographer with good prospects; she is an ex-lawyer who has given up her career to focus on her passion for painting. They have a toddler called Emma and are blissfully happy with their lot in life. The only fly in the ointment is that their current residence is just a little bit to small for them all to comfortably…

By way of some sort of explanation – In an effort to expand the my reading horizons I’ve decided that it was high time read something that was not a novel. Quirk Books very kindly provided what I think is some sort of self help/how to guide? The results, I think, speak for themselves…. Pirates, by nature, aren’t terribly literate. As a consequence, no book can hope to fully prepare the pampered, modern-day layabout for the lusty life of a pirate. This book,however, will put you on the right path – the path to adeventure, treasure, glory, mystery, and, every so often, the bottom of a barrel of rum. Avast me hearties, tis I – Captain Pablo Cheesecake on the good ship The Eloquent Page. Being as I am the very definition of a modern-day layabout I knew that this book would assist in answering all my pirate related questions. At may surprise all of ye unworthy swabs but since I was knee-high to a Jolly Roger I have always been a fan of all things piratical. I still remember fondly the first time I marveled at Burt Lancaster swashing his buckle in The Crimson Pirate. Since that day, I have…