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reviews

reviews

A 24-hour triumph

The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page When I read Libby Page’s debut novel The Lido upon its release in 2018 I was blown away about how good it was and it remained one of the best books of the year for me. I…

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reviews

Book Review of the Year: 2018

Because I smashed 2017’s target of 45 books with 56 books read, I set an always ambition target of reading 50 books this year, and only just scraped in on the last day of the year to make it (having…

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reviews

A book of magic with twists and turns aplenty

A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison Michelle Harrison is perhaps best known for her award-winning 13 Treasures books with their dark elves and fairy magic, but beyond that world she has also gone spooky with (the maybe too-often overlooked) Unrest and her last, and delivered…

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reviews

A Cosy Mystery by a ‘Reluctant Murderer’

Murder by the Book by Debbie Young When I think of cosy/village mysteries I think of the ‘lighter’ Miss Marples, or an episode of Bergerac or Death in Paradise. What all of these mysteries have in common is that all feature a murder (and often…

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reviews

A harsh, unforgiving tale that is not without hope

Kill Land by Dan Holloway  I approached this book with trepidation because a perceived reputation for it’s sole-destroying depression. Maybe that was a misunderstanding on my part because what Dan Holloway was saying was that it was “lacking redemption”. Either way, I…

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reviews

Nature, red in tooth and claw

Cuckoo Call by Betty Salthouse Family loyalties, teenage angst, sibling rivalry, murder, attempted suicide. These are powerful, important subjects. Betty Salthouse’s third book Cuckoo Call pulls all the subjects in a story that could easily be about human relationships as it is about a…

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reviews

A creative and delightful fairytale

The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, Edward Ardizzone (Ilustrator) It was the Edward Ardizzone illustrations that drew me in compulsively to this book, and they are an absolute delight – full of magic and wonder and joy. From the beginning it’s a…

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Reading about storytelling

Dæmon Voices by Philip Pullman  I love, love, love Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and his latest first book in the new Book of Dust series, but I have sometimes found sometimes when I’ve heard Philip talk in interviews for him to be a bit…

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journal, reviews

Review of the book year: 2017

I pledged to read 45 books this year, and ended up reading 56 books (although Thomas rules dictate that if it’s got an ISBN number it goes on the list!). I also pledged to finish writing the Mr Tumnal sequel, The Imaginary Wife…

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reviews

The enchantment of words

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris This a spell book of words. It is a book that you have to curl up in the armchair and pour over. It is a book that you can’t just just read, but touch and…

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Magical Realism at its quietest best

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern  From its opening lines, “The circus arrives without warning […] Opens at Nightfall / Closes at Dawn”, this book and the story within it is an enticing prospect. Circuses are magical places in any normal world. Like…

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reviews

Conclusion of a Quartet of Feline Tails

Close Encounters of the Furred Kind by Tom Cox  You can’t read this book, the fourth in the quartet of Tom Cox ‘catoirs’, without feeling a poignant weight of sadness that it is nearing the end for The Bear aka @mySADcat who…

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