Lady Belinda Featherstone was a young American heiress whose marriage didn’t exactly work out splendidly, with her husband both blatantly cheating on her and squandering as much of her money as possible before having the good grace to die and leave her a widow. Now supporting herself as a matchmaker for other young American heiresses wanting to make a successful match into English nobility, Belinda is determined that none of her charges ever end up making as disastrous a match as she. So when she […]
4.5 stars This is the second book in the series of The Others.While you get enough information to read it without having read the first one, you should really do yourself a favour and start with Written in Red. It’s the best paranormal/urban fantasy book I read last year, and deserves to be read by as many people as possible. This review will also contain minor spoilers for the first one, so you may want to come back and read it once you’ve finished book 1. Having […]
Growing up motherless is hard to do
3. 5 stars Lily Owens grows up isolated, neglected by her father and lonely on a peach farm in Georgia in the 1960s. Her only friend is the woman who acts as her nanny, Rosaleen, a former field hand who’s taken care of her since Lily’s mother died in a tragic accident when Lily was little more than a toddler. When Rosaleen is forced to flee town after accidentally insulting some white men while on her way to registering to vote, Lily insists on coming […]
Fewer demons, more elves in this one
This book is book 12 and the penultimate in The Hollows series, with several story lines that have been building throughout the series. It’s absolutely NOT the place to start. If you haven’t read these, start with Dead Witch Walking. Frankly, if you don’t know the series, you’d probably be best just skipping this review. Rachel is working security for Trent while Quen is on the West Coast. Despite her many former misgivings about working for and with the billionaire, she’s been enjoying herself, possibly a bit too […]
So full of metaphor. Guess what the sharks symbolise?
2.5 stars The Norwegian Peder Jensen is the second mate on a sailing ship, the Nepture, on route from Manilla to Marseille, in 1899. In the prologue it is revealed that six months after this ship set sail, it is still missing without a trace. In the novel we discover what happened to the ship and the crew. As second mate, and third in command on the ship, Jensen also has to be the crew medic, and spends a lot of his time patching up […]
I don’t like Beckett, I don’t like Pinter – I certainly don’t like this
A couple, he somewhere in middle age, around his fifties (according to the stage directions), she in her thirties arrive at a house by the ocean, in a remote and lonely location. Here they are finally going to be alone, alone together, away from everyone and everything. But she is worried. “Someone is going to come” she laments. Their perfect solitude will be shattered by outsiders, she’s convinced of this. He tries to reassure her that no one will come, they will just be alone, […]