October book reviews

I’ve got a busy month planned for book reviews. Here goes:

• 5th October: 
  • Entropy, by Bryn Lucas
  • After the Fire, by Henning Mankell
• 9th October
  • Sun Sea and Sex, by Greta Horwood
    • Review and Extract
    • AuthorHouseUK blog tour
• 12th October
  • Vikings: The Truth About Lagertha And Ragnar, by Rachel Tsoumbakos
• 15th October
  • Drip, by Andrew Montlack
• 18th October
  • The Watcher, by Monika Jephcott Thomas
    • Review and Author Spotlight
    • Clink Street blog tour
• 21st Octber
  • Mercer Street, by John A. Heldt
• 26th October
  • Choose to Rise: The Victory Within, by M.N.Mekaelian (possibly – I’m waiting for the book to arrive)
• 30th October
  • Zombie Haunted Mansion, by Zombie Outbreak Media

I work hard for you lot, you know 😀

Review: ‘Asia Literacy and GLobal Competence: Collections And Recollections’, by Alicia Su Lozeron

Published By: Asia-America Connection Society

Publication Date: 28th September

I.S.B.N.: 9780998194158

Format: Available as E-book or Hardback

Price: £2.36 (Kindle E-book), £16.12 (Hardback)

 

Blurb

An irresistible shift of global power renders awareness about global competence ever more important. Through her collection of vignettes and articles about Asia and the world, Alicia Su Lozeron brings the Asian segment onto the western stage.  She aims to raise that awareness and connects the West to the East by researching and analysing facts as well as describing experiences of cross-cultural nature.  Her content is compelling, and her tales, beautifully narrated.

Novel updates, leaking roofs and doggie birthdays

Nothing much, I’ve finished another edit of Fire Betrayed and sent it for reading by my beta readers. It’s getting there slowly, but I want to polish it some more. I expect to be sworn at again.

Review: ‘A Secret History of Brands’, by Matt MacNabb

Published By: Pen & Sword History

Publication Date: 4th September 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781473894174

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

 

Blurb

We live our lives immersed in name brand products. It’s hard to drive down the street without seeing a plethora of chain restaurants, car dealerships, branded clothing they’re all around us. What most of us don’t know is that the origins of many of the most well-known and beloved brands in the world are shrouded in controversy, drug use and sometimes even addled with blatant racism.

A Secret History of Brands cuts through the rumours and urban legends and paints a picture of the true dark history of famous brands, like Coca-Cola, Hugo Boss, Adidas, Ford, Bayer, Chanel and BMW among others. Explore the mystery of the cocaine content of Coca-Cola, the Hitler-Henry Ford connection and why Bayer is famous for Asprin, but began their journey with Heroin, and how Kellogg’s Corn Flakes were crafted to deter sexual arousal. Thoroughly researched, MacNabb details first-hand conducted interviews alongside fairly weighed research to present the decisive view of brands histories that you haven’t heard of yet.

Review: ‘A Visitor’s Guide To Georgian England’, by Monica Hall

Published By: Pen & Sword History

Publication Date: 4th September 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781473876859

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

Blurb

Could you successfully be a Georgian? Find yourself immersed in the pivotal world of Georgian England, exciting times to live in as everything was booming; the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the nascent Empire; inhabited by Mary Shelley, the Romantic Poets and their contemporaries. However, rather than just wondering about the famous or infamous, you will find everything you need to know in order to survive undetected among the ordinary people. What to wear, how to behave yourself in public, earn a living, and find somewhere to live. Very importantly, you will be given advice on how to stay on the right side of the law, and how to avoid getting seriously ill. Monica Hall creatively awakens this bygone era, filling the pages with all aspects of daily life within the period, calling upon diaries, illustrations, letters, poetry, prose, 18th century laws and archives. This detailed account intimately explores the ever changing lives of those who lived through Britain’s imperial prowess, the birth of modern capitalism, the reverence of the industrial revolution and the upheaval of great political reform and class division. A Visitor’s Guide to Georgian England will appeal to Romantic poetry lovers, social history fans, fiction and drama lovers, students and anyone with an interest in this revolutionary era.

Review: ‘Fatal Evidence’, by Helen Barrell

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Published By: Pen & Sword History

Publication Date: 4th September 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781473883413

Format: Hardback

Price: £15.99

Blurb

If there was a suspected poisoning in Victorian Britain, Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor was one of the toxicologists whose opinion would be sought. A surgeon and chemist at Guy’s Hospital in London, he used new techniques to search human remains for evidence that had previously been unseen. As well as finding telltale crystals of poison in test tubes, he could identify blood on clothing and weapons, and he used hair and fibre analysis to catch killers.

Taylor is perhaps best remembered as an expert witness at one of Victorian England’s most infamous trials – that of William Palmer, ‘The Rugeley Poisoner’. The case of the strychnine that wasn’t there haunted Taylor, setting up controversial rivalries with other scientists that would last decades. It overshadowed his involvement in hundreds of other intriguing cases, such as The Waterloo Bridge Mystery; The Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead; and the investigation into female impersonators, Boulton and Park. Crime struck even at the heart of Taylor’s own family, when his nephew’s death became the focus of The Eastbourne Manslaughter.

Taylor wrote many books and articles on forensic medicine; he became required reading for all nineteenth-century medical students. He gave Charles Dickens a tour of his laboratory, and Wilkie Collins owned copies of his books on poisons. Taylor’s work was known to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and he inspired the creation of fictional forensic detective Dr Thorndyke; for Dorothy L. Sayers, Taylor’s books were ‘the back doors to death’.

From crime scene to laboratory to courtroom – and sometimes to the gallows – this is the world of Alfred Swaine Taylor and his fatal evidence.

Poem: I should have known

I should have realised
Long ago
There’s something a little off 
About me.

Everyone knew how
To act
To react
To interact
Inate instructions calling time
Picking up the rules and the rhyme.

No one told me the rules of the game
Or even that we were playing, with
No choice but to play.

I learnt the rules, or a strange
Version thereof from
Books.

Because nobody bothered to sit down
And explain the rules of the game, or
that I had to play.

So when i say or do
The wrong thing, try remembering
You knew the rules, how to act, interact, react,
And I’m still learning with every book I read.

 

 

I wrote a poem last night, it’s had some compliments from a number of people. I’m quite pleased with the metaphor and hopefully it gets the message across.

Considering Patreon

Hello, dear readers.

How’s everyone?

Review: ‘The One That Got Away’, by Annabel Kantaria

Published By: HQ

Publication Date: 21st September 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781848455122

Format: Paperback (also available as an ebook)

Price: £7.99

Blurb

First comes the invitation…

Something makes Stella click ‘yes’ to attending her school reunion.

Followed by the affair…

It’s been fifteen years since Stella and George last saw each other. Their relationship may have ended badly, but there’s still an undeniable spark between them.

Then

the consequences…

But, once someone gets you back, what if they never let you go again?

Review: ‘The Watcher’, by Ross Armstrong

Published by: HQ

Publication Date: 21st September 2017

Format: Paperback

I.S.B.N.: 9780008181178

Price: £7.99

Blurb

She’s watching you, but who’s watching her?

Lily Gullick lives with her husband Aiden in a new-build flat opposite an estate which has been marked for demolition. A keen birdwatcher, she can’t help spying on her neighbours.

Until one day Lily sees something suspicious through her binoculars and soon her elderly neighbour Jean is found dead. Lily, intrigued by the social divide in her local area as it becomes increasingly gentrified, knows that she has to act. But her interference is not going unnoticed, and as she starts to get close to the truth, her own life comes under threat.

But can Lily really trust everything she sees?