Welcome to The Eloquent Page’s annual awards/review of the year (2017 Edition). Ten awards created at random for your delectation and delight. The rules remain deliciously simple. I make up a series of categories and I choose a winner. Eligibility is also easy, if I’ve read it this year, it’s eligible. First some stats (I apologise, I’m a stat whore and so I’m often compelled to start throwing numbers around). I’ve read sixty-one books this year. There were an additional fifteen I started but didn’t finish. Fantasy fiction featured most heavily with twenty-two books, while Horror came a close second with seventeen. My longest review was one thousand two hundred and thirty-four words long, my shortest was four hundred and twenty-eight. The total number of review words written in 2017? A suitably satisfying fifty-two thousand and sixty-six words. “Enough of this statistical folderol”, I hear you cry. Alrighty then. Please take your seats and direct your attention towards the stage. Without further ado on with the show… The “They’re Good Dogs Brent” Award for Canines in Fiction – For some inexplicable reason, 2017 seemed to feature more dogs in fiction than in previous years. Adrian Tchaikovsky brought us Dogs of…

For the uninitiated – The Eloquent Page is just me, on my own. There are guest reviews from time to time but I read 99% of the books myself. I’m most definitely not a writer, I’m just a collector of stories, so I don’t bother with negative reviews. Life, as I have discovered, is way too short to be reading books you don’t enjoy. As has become habit over the last few years, I like to round off the reviewing calendar with a look back over the last twelve months, and dispense some awards that are entirely of my own devising. In 2016, I’ve read sixty-five books and the only criteria to be in the running for an award, except for one category, is that I’ve read and reviewed the book. Now that we’ve sorted that waffly preamble out… on with the show. “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” Award – I enjoy a good apocalypse as much is the next person so I read as many of the Armageddon-esque gems as I can lay my hands on. This year I read some corkers. The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, Bite by K.S. Merbeth and The Last…

Another year draws to a close, and I find myself in the midst of the little book vacation I always give myself. A couple of weeks off means I can come back to the blog refreshed and reinvigorated for the coming year. It also gives me the opportunity to reflect upon what I’ve read over the past twelve months. Now, it’s time for the annual Eloquent Page awards. The rules are as arbitrary as ever. I make up the categories myself and the only real requirement are that the winners are taken from within the books I’ve read this last year. I’ve tried to reduce the number of books I read in a year; I’m aiming for one a week. In the past the blog has taken over my life a little, but in 2015 I came pretty close to my target. The grand total was 60 books. So without further ado on to the awards themselves. The They Will Be Missed Award – Sadly, all good things to an end. The biggest disappointment for me in 2015 was that way back in January, the final book in the Ack Ack Macaque series, Macaque Attack by Gareth Powell arrived. *Sniffle*…

Wow, five years have just flown by haven’t they? Way back in 2010 I thought it would be fun to start waffling about books on the Internet. It all began when Mrs Cheesecake demanded suggested that I get myself a hobby. Frankly, she felt I was making the place look untidy and she told me I had to do something about it. Half a decade later, and I’m still here and I’m still waffling. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I thought I would do something a bit different and have a crack at interviewing myself. Who is Pablo Cheesecake? Just some guy who likes books a whole lot. I’m originally from Scotland, but my heart brought me south to Nottingham and that is where I now lay my hat. I’m six foot two, blue eyed, brown haired and currently incredibly hirsute. According to Mrs Cheesecake I look like the bastard child of Sasquatch and a Bee Gee. By day, I am a mild-mannered computer geek, but by night I am a something quite different… a mild mannered book reviewer! (Ok, perhaps not that different after all). If you look hard you can find me lurking on various social media channels,…

Juggernaut by Adam Baker is published by Hodder & Stoughton and will be released on Thursday 16th February in the UK. Fancy winning yourself a copy? Of course you do. Well it’s all terribly easy. Simple follow the instructions below. All you have to do is copy and paste the text below into a tweet .  All those that post the tweet will be entered into a draw and 1 lucky winner will picked at random. Please tweet the following text by 9pm Friday 10th February: Follow @TheEloquentPage & RT this for a chance to win a copy of Juggernaut by Adam Baker #Juggernaut http://bit.ly/AwOw7d RULES: To be entered into the draw you must have tweeted the above text sometime before 9pm Friday 10th February 2012, AND be a follower (old or new) of @TheEloquentPage twitter account. Unfortunately this competition is restricted to UK residents only.