Sunday, 19 February 2012

Book Review - Banshee in the Well by Robin Lovejoy

What a wonderful way to start your career as a writer. This story tells of a young boy who finds a girl in the well on his farm. The girl turns out to be a 13th century banshee who needs to find a way to get her magic back and return from our time to hers. The relationship between the two main characters is really well written as is the way Sathra, the banshee sees modern things which she has obviously never seen before. The story has paintballers, treasure hunters and a rock band (with a Simon Cowell type character who is only in the background) and goes from scene to scene fluently.
I have worked with young people in a library enviroment so I feel confident enough to say they would lap this up but so would adults.
All said, this being a first novel is quite astounding. The author writes with a style and confidence that others can only wish for. I look forward to reading more from Robin Lovejoy and heartily reccomend this book

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Book Review - Wet Linda by Paul Parducci

This book "Wet Linda" is the first novel by Paul Paducci - and on this showing there's a promising future ahead for him.
The story tells of a body-conscious teen girl who moves,with her family to a new home in California. She doesn't fit in with the local "pool-crowd" so goes to the local community pool where she comes under the influence of an evil water demon (the eponymous Wet Linda) who uses her to wreak her vengeance.
It is a very well told story which is not afraid to be graphic in it's nastiness. It had me holding my breath at times, proper edge of the seat stuff.
If you like your horror gritty, this one is worth a go so try it out.
And no vampires or zombies - another plus point.

Monday, 6 February 2012

WHY DO PUBLISHERS TAKE THE BRITISH BOOK BUYING PUBLIC FOR MUGS?

Once again, this March there will be a volume off G R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (ASIF) published in the UK and due to the size of the hardback edition it will be sold in two parts. This obviously means paying out for two paperbacks and I am not impressed. I know some booksellers will do deals of some kind but that is not the point.
The same thing happened before with book 3 in the series and with the first volume of Brandon Sanderson's quite marvelous (in my opinion) Stormlight Archive - The Way Of Kings. My gripe is that on visiting Sheffield Space Centre (and if you haven't visited there you really should) I have found 1 volume editions of ASIF 3 and The Way of Kings printed and published in America which were of good quality (both paper and cover) and, more importently, of about the same price as a uk paperback.
So my question is, if the US publishers can do it, why can't the UK publishers.


On a seperate note - Being Human started back again on BBC3 last night (Sunday Feb 5th) and it was marvelous. Looks like the series is going to keep on getting stronger even without 3 of the main cast. Good Times.