Forthcoming Publications

6 OCTOBER

Review of Fly by Alison Hughes Confident Readers This is a very impressive read, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy of the first-person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsy, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses it. Full Review

Review of Wolf Pack by Will Dean Crime The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of Visberg. She sees blood on the road and a creature on its side near the pine trees. It will turn out to be Bronco, a Swedish Elkhound, who has been attacked by a wolf. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vet. Bronco didn't make it but on the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missing. She'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought to the fore. Rose Farm is now home to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himself. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg? Full Review

13 OCTOBER

Review of Red as Blood by Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator) Thrillers When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with the police, so instead he enlists the help of Arora, a financial investigator. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance, trying not to arouse the suspicion of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things become. Full Review

21 OCTOBER

Review of The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams Politics and Society The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. Full Review

25 OCTOBER

Review of The Dark Room by Lisa Gray Crime What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard in this story. He is an ex-crime reporter for a newspaper, and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at home. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he thought he had watched die in front of him one night in a hotel. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died the night she was with him, what on earth actually happened? Full Review

27 OCTOBER

Review of The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair by Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith Confident Readers The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep. And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core. Full Review

1NOVEMBER

Review of Squeakily Baby by Beth Webb For Sharing Much as mothers love their babies, there's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go to sleep: instead, he just lies on his blanket and wails. The sea offers to help. It rocks Baby gently and the waves sing hush, hush. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectly. The mermaids join in - la lou, la lay... And for a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyes. Then a seagull shouts and we know exactly what's going to happen next. Full Review

1 JANUARY

Review of Death in Heels by Kitty Murphy Crime Set against the backdrop of Dublin's drag scene, Death in Heels tells the story of Fi McKinnery and her best friend, Robyn, who is about to debut as drag queen Mae B. What is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queen, Eve, takes to the stage to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet the drag community, and the Guards, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery as she fears for her friends, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeper. Full Review

2 MARCH

Review of Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix Teens Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with. Full Review

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