Friday, October 28, 2022

Brielfy, A Delicious Life, by Nell Stevens

When I heard that Nell Stevens was taking on the story of another literary great - following on from her part-memoir, part-imagined life 'Mrs Gaskell and Me' - I had to pick it up.

Written from the perspective of a 14-year-old ghost called Blanca, 'Briefly, A Delicious Life' looks at a moment in the (delicious) life of renowned French writer George Sand and her love affair with Chopin. Set in Valldemossa on the island of Mallorca, Sand and Chopin up sticks from Paris for the better weather, in the hopes of helping Chopin overcome a sickness. Blanca falls in love with George at first sight and so begins an obsessive haunting.

Unfortunately, Blanca is the only one who welcomes the existence of the newcomers. The islanders' repugnance of these strangers, particularly the woman who dresses as a man and brings her children to live in sin with a friend-who-is-most-certainly-not-her-husband, starts as small-town bullying, and grows ever more sinister after an excellent squid heist (yes, you read that correctly). 

Stevens also allows us to time travel through Blanca's memories of her own life and subsequent afterlife on the island. These passages make you fall in love with her and impotently rage at the injustices done to her.

The only sections that didn't quite hit the mark for me were the descriptions of Chopin's playing and his obsession with his piano; however, I imagine they would be a highlight for any classical music enthusiast.

Written with a lyricism I have come to expect from Stevens, this is an excellent debut novel exploring power in relationships and living life for yourself.

- Amy 




Hardback, £14.99.

Friday, October 21, 2022

Stargazer, by Laurie Petrou

Stargazer is a book full of suspense and twists, and I was hooked from the opening chapter. 

From very different worlds, Aurelle and Diana are brought together by trauma, forming an unlikely bond. Their friendship is complex, intense, and unusual. When the girls join university together, you can feel their mutual desire to escape their past and try to forge new identities. 

The main themes running though the book are relationships, lust, loss, wealth, and status. The characters are beautifully crafted and as they developed throughout the book, I found myself wanting to know more about them and what is underneath the surface. The author brilliantly creates a sense of mystery and tension through clever description and characterisation.

Although this book is a slow burner, it kept me on my toes. 

I’d tell you all more, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers! If you like thrilling, suspense filled reads, this book is for you. If you were a fan of Big Little Lies or Little Fires Everywhere, I think you would love this!

- Lauren




Paperback, £9.99. Order now!

Friday, October 14, 2022

Ordinary Monsters, by JM Miro

Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro was an intense however extremely enjoyable read with a whopping total 672 pages, holding a gripping and very well written story line. 

This is a new series about a group of children called Talents who are different and out of the ordinary when it comes to the rest of the world. The first book specifically follows two young boys: Marlowe and Charlie, and their journey to the Cairndale Institute. Here, a corrupt older Talent, Henry Berghast looks after and helps train younger Talents from across the world. However, not all is as it seems when it comes to Marlowe’s talent, and Henry has a big secret he is trying to protect. 

Throughout the book you meet characters you grow to love, like Alice Quicke, a young woman who was brought in to help locate young talents - including Marlowe and Charlie - and Agent Frank Coulton, an agent for Cairndale who actually suggested Alice for the job. You also come face to face with Jacob Marber, an older talent who was turned to the dark side by our antagonist, the Drughr. It is up to the children and everyone at Cairndale to protect a precious artefact and to work out who the real villain is. 

This story is a Victorian sci-fi and is written extremely well. JM Miro has been able to merge two worlds that shouldn’t necessarily pair well together perfectly. The Victorian era focuses mainly across America, London, and Edinburgh, and the descriptions paint a clear picture in your head of the picturesque views in Edinburgh and the dark and dingy alleys in London. However, he has managed to add a dystopian vibe to the writing which opened up even more doorways for the story to unfold. It created settings and descriptions of the unknown creatures that became ever more eerie. 

In the past I have read a handful of books with multiple narrators, and I never had many issues, but at the beginning of this book I found myself finding it slightly more difficult to read. Just as I would get totally invested in one story line and the chapter was reaching a climax, it would end, and the next chapter would be a different story line and I would have to start the whole process again! But when the story lines all merged together, I found it all fit together perfectly and I didn’t encounter any more issues like that. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a historical read with a sci-fi twist. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think the series overall has an immense amount of potential. Once past the narrative issues early on, it was a seamless and easy read. The style was beautiful and was a merge of poetry and fiction (in my opinion anyway) and JM Miro really made you love the characters. I cannot wait for the release of the rest of the series over the next few years and I am interested to read more of JM Miro’s work. 


- Phoebe



Hardback, £17.99.



Friday, October 7, 2022

A Mansion for Murder, by Frances Brody

Frances Brody’s A Mansion for Murder is her latest Kate Shackleton novel, and it features a real place – Milner Field, near Saltaire in West Yorkshire.  Kate is a private investigator, working with Jim Sykes and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. In 1930, Kate receives a mysterious letter from Ronnie Creswell, addressed to Mrs Gerald Shackleton, inviting her to meet him. Not many people would address her using her late husband’s name so she’s intrigued enough to accept the invitation. However, when she arrives at his home, she learns that Ronnie drowned that day. Kate and her colleagues get drawn into investigating Ronnie’s death and some possible industrial espionage at the mill where he worked.

Once again, Brody’s nailed the narrative tone of an intelligent professional woman. Most of the book is narrated in the first person by Kate, but suddenly switches to third person when Brody needs to include a scene without her. This can be a little confusing, but I figure it’s a small price to pay for reading such good books.

The characters are well delineated and not so many that the reader gets confused. The plot is plausible and moves reasonably briskly. There are no laugh out loud moments and the tone is gentle and measured, primarily due to Kate’s narrative voice.  There were a few errors in the early proof copy that I was given for review, but I’m sure they will be fixed before publication. None of them distracted the reader very much as it was obvious what was meant.

I really enjoyed the book and I strongly recommend it if you enjoy British mysteries set between the wars. The plot was unusual, although I guessed whodunnit for once by a process of elimination.


- Colin



Paperback, £8.99. Published 20-10-22.
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