‘..you make me feel like Spring has sprung…’
15 March 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: The Broke and the Bookish, Top 10 spring books, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
‘Ten Books On My Spring TBR’
As far as I’m aware Spring, that lovely season of awakenings, starts around mid March and concludes with the onset of Summer in mid June. So, this shouldn’t be too complicated (heads over to book diary… wow, lots of good books to look forward to):

- Fellside by M R Carey: Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It’s a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
- Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye: Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And
like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked – but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors.
A fugitive navigating London’s underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding the noose. Until an advertisement catches her eye. Her aunt has died and the new master at Highgate House, Mr Thornfield, seeks a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate’s true heir, Jane takes the position and is soon caught up in the household’s strange spell. When she falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him – body, soul and secrets – and what if he discovers her murderous past? - Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis: The year is 1779, and Carlo Morelli, the most
renowned castrato singer in Europe, has been invited as an honored guest to Eszterháza Palace. With Carlo in Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s carriage, ride a Prussian spy and one of the most notorious alchemists in the Habsburg Empire. Already at Eszterháza is Charlotte von Steinbeck, the very proper sister of Prince Nikolaus’s mistress. Charlotte has retreated to the countryside to mourn her husband’s death. Now, she must overcome the ingrained rules of her society in order to uncover the dangerous secrets lurking within the palace’s golden walls. Music, magic, and blackmail mingle in a plot to assassinate the Habsburg Emperor and Empress–a plot that can only be stopped if Carlo and Charlotte can see through the masks worn by everyone they meet. - The Everything Box by Richard Kadrey: Reminiscent of the edgy, offbeat humor of Chris
Moore and Matt Ruff, the first entry in a whimsical, fast-paced supernatural series from the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim novels-a dark and humorous story involving a doomsday gizmo, a horde of baddies determined to possess its power, and a clever thief who must steal it back . . . again and again
2000 B.C. A beautiful, ambitious angel stands on a mountaintop, surveying the world and its little inhabitants below. He smiles because soon, the last of humanity who survived the great flood will meet its end, too. And he should know. He’s going to play a big part in it. Our angel usually doesn’t get to do field work, and if he does well, he’s certain he’ll be get a big promotion.
And now it’s time . . .
The angel reaches into his pocket for the instrument of humanity’s doom. Must be in the other pocket. Then he frantically begins to pat himself down. Dejected, he realizes he has lost the object. Looking over the Earth at all that could have been, the majestic angel utters a single word. “Crap.”
2015 A thief named Coop-a specialist in purloining magic objects-steals and delivers a small box to the mysterious client who engaged his services. Coop doesn’t know that his latest job could be the end of him-and the rest of the world. Suddenly he finds himself in the company of the Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome enforcement agency that polices the odd and strange. The box isn’t just a supernatural heirloom with quaint powers, they tell him.
It’s a doomsday device. They think. . .
And suddenly, everyone is out to get it. - Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel: World War Z meets The Martian. This inventive
first novel will please devoted fans of sci-fi as well as literary readers hoping a smart thriller will sneak up on them.
17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. A swift and spellbinding tale told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character, this is a unique debut that describes a hunt for truth, power, and giant body parts. - Hex by Thomas Olde Huevelt: The incredible, horrifying thriller from Thomas Olde
Heuveult, the Hugo award-winning author of ‘The Day The World Turned Upside Down’, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Adam Nevill and Stephen King.
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.
The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into a dark nightmare - The Silent Army by James A Moore: The City of Wonders has been saved by nearly
miraculous forces and the Silent Army is risen, ready to defend the Fellein Empire and Empress Nachia at any cost.
The power that was hidden in the Mounds is on the move, seeking a final confrontation with the very entities that kept it locked away since the Cataclysm. Andover Lashk has finally come to accept his destiny and prepares to journey back to Fellein. The Sa’ba Taalor continue their domination over each country and people they encounter, but the final conflict is coming: The Great Wave of the Sa’ba Taalor stands to destroy an empire and the Silent Army prepares to stop them in their tracks.
Caught in the middle is the Fellein Empire and the people who have gathered together on the final battlefield. The faithful and the godless, the soldiers and killers alike all stand or fall as old gods and new bring their war to a world-changing end. Some struggles are eternal. Some conflicts never cease. The Gods of War are here and they are determined to win. - The Fireman by Joe Hill: No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A
terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke. - Smoke by Dan Vyleta: “Smoke is an addictive combination of thriller, fantasy, and
historical novel, with a dash of horror. It’s chilling and complex and amazingly imaginative.’”—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness
England. A century ago, give or take a few years.
An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. An England utterly strange and utterly real.
An elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright. Teachers with mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Three young people who learn everything they’ve been taught is a lie—knowledge that could cost them their lives. A grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories. A love triangle. A desperate chase. Revolutionaries and secret police. Religious fanatics and coldhearted scientists. Murder. A London filled with danger and wonder. A tortured relationship between a mother and a daughter, and a mother and a son. Unexpected villains and unexpected heroes. Cool reason versus passion. Rich versus poor. Right versus wrong, though which is which isn’t clear.
This is the world of Smoke, a narrative tour de force, a tale of Dickensian intricacy and ferocious imaginative power, richly atmospheric and intensely suspenseful. - The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May: The second book in the Falconer trilogy is
packed with surprises and suspense.
Aileana Kameron, the Falconer, disappeared through the portal that she was trying to close forever. Now she wakes up in the fae world, trapped and tortured by the evil Lonnrach. With the help of an unexpected ally, Aileana re-enters the human world, only to find everything irrevocably changed. Edinburgh has been destroyed, and the few human survivors are living in an uneasy truce with the fae, while both worlds are in danger of disappearing altogether. Aileana holds the key to saving both worlds, but in order to do so she must awaken her latent Falconer powers. And the price of doing that might be her life.
Rich with imaginative detail, action, fae lore, and romance, The Vanishing Throne is a thrilling sequel to The Falconer.
Just not my cup of tea!

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
‘Ten Characters Everyone Loves But I Just Don’t Get’
This is a funny one – mainly because I’m probably going to name some characters now that I didn’t particularly love that maybe everyone else did. It always makes you feel on dodgy ground doesn’t it! Then again, maybe others will feel the same – who knows:
- Frodo – Lord of the Rings by JRRTolkien. He got on my last nerve most of the time to be honest. He was very whiney and I just thought that Sam should have knocked him out and carried him to Mordor! Or just took the ring and thrown it into Mount Doom himself.
- Harry Potter – JKRowling – I absolutely love this series, in film and book, but Harry isn’t my favourite character. And whilst I’m on the subject of things that just feel wrong – Harry Potter and Hermione just felt more natural somehow. Don’t get me wrong, the feelings between Hermione and Ron definitely sparked some very funny storylines but somehow it didn’t feel right
- Cathy and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I really like this story but in spite of that these two characters are really not nice people. I just don’t like them. I think selfish is the word I’m looking for.
- Matthew from Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy – Matthew is one of those characters that is all talk no action. Everyone is always like ‘ooh, don’t annoy Matthew, don’t make him angry’ but then in the thick of any action he turns into a useless so and so. He’s just one of those characters that feels like he’s more bark than bite (sorry about the pun!)
- Mori from Jo Walton’s Among Others. This is one of those books that I really wanted to love but just couldn’t get on board with although I think it’s beautifully written. Mori wasn’t a bad character I suppose but I wasn’t sure that she was reliable.
- Feyre from a Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas. I wanted to give her a bit of a shake. She never stood up for herself with her family and I thought there was something unrealistic about that.
- Edward and Bella. I’m not even going into that one.
- Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula – he’s just not my favourite character.
- Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – I got a bit fed up of hearing how gorgeous he was and also he was so proud and arrogant. He didn’t do it for me. Whoops. Wrong name. Don’t think I mean Karou. Think the name I was looking for is Akiva! Apologies 😦
- I have an open space for No.10 – I’m waiting to see what everyone else comes up with!
‘I am fire, I am death’
1 March 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Dragons, The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
‘Ten Books To Read If You Are In The Mood For X’
Dragons
- The Hobbit by JRRTolkien – surely the most famous dragon (for me anyways!)
- Game of Thrones by JRRMartin – three dragons no less!
- The Copper Promise series by Jen Williams. A most excellent series with dragons and wyverns
- The Dragon Engine by Andy Remic
- A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
- Owl and the Japanese Circus – by Kristi Charish (a dragon shapeshifter)
- The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (another dragon shapeshifter in this series)
- Harry Potter by J K Rowling – okay, dragons aren’t the main focus here but they are included!
- The Riftwar books by Raymond Feist
- Dragon Hunter by Marc Turner (I haven’t read this one yet – to be reviewed later this month but check out the great cover):

Out of the comfort zone…
23 February 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: books out of the comfort zone, The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday
Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
‘Ten Book I Enjoyed Recently That Weren’t My Typical Genre/Type of Book’
I tend to read more fantasy books than anything else. The following are books that are slightly different than those I would normally read. All really good books that I’m glad I didn’t miss:
The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne.‘A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives. But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity—that she, in fact, is Lydia—their world comes crashing down once again. As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the past—what really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?
Canary by Duane Swierczynski. Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie has no choice but to become a “CI”–a confidential informant. Philly narcotics cop Ben Wildey is hungry for a career-making bust. The detective thinks he’s found the key in Sarie: her boyfriend scores from a mid-level dealer with alleged ties to the major drug gangs. Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI: a quick study with a shockingly keen understanding of the criminal mind. But Wildey, desperate for results, pushes too hard and inadvertently sends the 19-year-old into a death trap, leaving Sarie hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her–except what she’s learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant. Which is bad news for the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #1373 turns out to be a very quick study…
True Grit by Charles Portis tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father’s blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true cult status, this is an American classic through and through.
The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. My name is Jax.
That is the name granted to be by my human masters.
I am a clakker: a mechanical man, powered by alchemy. Armies of my kind have conquered the world – and made the Brasswork Throne the sole superpower.
I am a faithful servant. I am the ultimate fighting machine. I am endowed with great strength and boundless stamina.
But I am beholden to the wishes of my human masters.
I am a slave. But I shall be free.- The Doll Maker by Richard Montanari. The terrifying new Byrne and Balzano case from the author of The Killing Room and The Stolen Ones.
Mr Marseille is polite, elegant, and erudite. He would do anything for his genteel true love Anabelle. And he is a psychopath.
A quiet Philadelphia suburb. A woman cycles past a train depot with her young daughter. And there she finds a murdered girl posed on a newly painted bench. Strangled. Beside her is a formal invite to a tea dance in a week’s time.
Seven days later, two more young victims are discovered in a disused house, posed on painted swings. At the scene is an identical invite. This time, though, there is something extra waiting for Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano.
A delicate porcelain doll. It’s a message. And a threat.
With Marseille and Anabelle stalking the city, Detectives Byrne and Balzano have just seven days to find the link between the murders before another innocent child is snatched from its streets.
The Devil’s Only Friend by Dan Wells. John Wayne Cleaver hunts demons: they’ve killed his neighbors, his family, and the girl he loves, but in the end he’s always won. Now he works for a secret government kill team, using his gift to hunt and kill as many monsters as he can…
…but the monsters have noticed, and the quiet game of cat and mouse is about to erupt into a full scale supernatural war.
John doesn’t want the life he’s stuck with. He doesn’t want the FBI bossing him around, he doesn’t want his only friend imprisoned in a mental ward, and he doesn’t want to face the terrifying cannibal who calls himself The Hunter. John doesn’t want to kill people. But as the song says, you can’t always get what you want. John has learned that the hard way; his clothes have the stains to prove it.
When John again faces evil, he’ll know what he has to do.
The Devil’s Only Friend is the first book in a brand-new John Wayne Cleaver trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Dan Wells.
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks. Peeling away the myth to bring the Old Testament’s King David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.
The Secret Chord provides new context for some of the best-known episodes of David’s life while also focusing on others, even more remarkable and emotionally intense, that have been neglected. We see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him—from the prophet Natan, voice of his conscience, to his wives Mikhal, Avigail, and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems his Lear-like old age. Brooks has an uncanny ability to hear and transform characters from history, and this beautifully written, unvarnished saga of faith, desire, family, ambition, betrayal, and power will enthrall her many fans.
Lock In by John Scalzi. A blazingly inventive near-future thriller from the best-selling, Hugo Award-winning John Scalzi.
Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent – and nearly five million souls in the United States alone – the disease causes “Lock In”: Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.
A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what’s now known as “Haden’s syndrome,” rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an “integrator” – someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.
But “complicated” doesn’t begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery – and the real crime – is bigger than anyone could have imagined. The world of the locked in is changing, and with the change comes opportunities that the ambitious will seize at any cost. The investigation that began as a murder case takes Shane and Vann from the halls of corporate power to the virtual spaces of the locked in, and to the very heart of an emerging, surprising new human culture. It’s nothing you could have expected.
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller. 1976: Peggy Hillcoat is eight. She spends her summer camping with her father, playing her beloved record of The Railway Children and listening to her mother’s grand piano, but her pretty life is about to change.
Her survivalist father, who has been stockpiling provisions for the end which is surely coming soon, takes her from London to a cabin in a remote European forest. There he tells Peggy the rest of the world has disappeared. And so her life is reduced to a piano which makes music but no sound, a forest where all that grows is a means of survival. And a tiny wooden hut that is Everything.
Peggy is not seen again for another nine years.
1985: Peggy has returned to the family home. But what happened to her in the forest? And why has she come back now?
The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo.A killer at large in a remote Basque Country valley, a detective to rival Clarice Starling, myth versus reality, masterful storytelling – the Spanish bestseller that has taken Europe by storm.The naked body of a teenage girl is found on the banks of the River Baztán. Less than 24 hours after this discovery, a link is made to the murder of another girl the month before. Is this the work of a ritualistic killer or of the Invisible Guardian, the Basajaun, a creature of Basque mythology?30-year-old Inspector Amaia Salazar heads an investigation which will take her back to Elizondo, the village in the heart of Basque country where she was born, and to which she had hoped never to return. A place of mists, rain and forests. A place of unresolved conflicts, of a dark secret that scarred her childhood and which will come back to torment her.Torn between the rational, procedural part of her job and local myths and superstitions, Amaia Salazar has to fight off the demons of her past in order to confront the reality of a serial killer at loose in a region steeped in the history of the Spanish Inquisition.
A lovestruck Romeo sings a streetsuss serenade…
16 February 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: The Broke and the Bookish, Top 10 Theme Tunes to books, Top Ten Tuesday
Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is all about songs. Top 10 songs that should be made into books. Top 10 books that should be made into songs, themes songs for a book, etc. I’m going with theme songs that could suit a particular book.
‘Theme songs for books’
- The Red Queen’s war trilogy by Mark Lawrence – Killer Queen by Queen
- The Martian by Andy Weir- Life on Mars by David Bowie
- Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire – (because – Tybalt) The Lovecats by The Cure
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman – Lucky Star by Madonna
- Flex by Ferrett Steinmetz – Relight my Fire by Take That
- Dracula by Bram Stoker – Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus
- Angelfall by Susan EE – There must by an Angel by The Eurythmics
- I am Legend by Richard Matheson – The Freaks Come out at Night by Whodini
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – Staying Alive by the BeeGees
- The Shining by Stephen King – Hotel California by the Eagles
“You and me babe, how ’bout it?”
(the title and above quote are taken from Romeo and Juliet by Dire Strait – guess the book!)





