Forthcoming Publications

19 JANUARY

Review of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett General Fiction Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik? Full Review

Review of White Riot by Joe Thomas Crime Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too raw. Knee-jerk observations and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture the spirit of the moment. It takes a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political history. Austerity Britain, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what is, and has been, written in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective view. Full Review

Review of The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell Crime The room was full of the sort of people Tatler thinks you should know. The Other Half is the story of two men, both with what looks like the same surname. Rupert Beauchamp is the heir to a baronetcy and his thirtieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Town. Think Bollinger and cocaine. His surname is pronounced 'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is bi-racial. His surname is pronounced as you see it. The two encounter each other when Caius, out for a run, stumbles across the body of Clemmie O'Hara, Rupert's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she was being deliberately late for his party. She was dead under a bush. Full Review

Review of Stay Buried by Kate Webb Crime DI Matt Lockyer is on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually a cold case unit and there are just two of them doing the job. Lockyer's not unduly worried, though although he's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something better. It was a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - and it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years ago. She's keen to see him and to tell him that the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decades. Full Review

23 JANUARY

Review of Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene Confident Readers We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. Kristallnacht happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

2 FEBRUARY

Review of Clara and Olivia by Lucy Ashe General Fiction The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that je ne sais quoi, that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a joie de vivre. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. Full Review

16 FEBRUARY

Review of Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street by Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson Confident Readers Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen? Full Review

30 MARCH

Review of The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz Thrillers Roza Vallo. Anyone in the world of publishing knows the name. Writers want to be her, agents want to represent her. She's something of a legend with an impressive, if compact, back catalogue of works that started with her breakthrough novel, published when she was barely out of childhood. Alex, a writer-slash-editor, is more than a little obsessed with Roza, and is stunned when, following a series of unexpected events, she is invited to be part of her month-long writers' retreat. Full Review

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

Review of The Sins of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation by Asa Larsson and Frank Perry (Translator) Crime Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live but he's determined that Rebecka Martinsson is going to investigate the case of a body found in a freezer at the home of a deceased alcoholic. The problem is that the case has long passed the statute of limitations. Raimo Koskela disappeared without a trace in 1962. He was the father of Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom. Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case on which she can take no action: the problem is that this is a dying man's wish. The situation changes when a post-mortem establishes that Henry Pekkari, the dead alcoholic, was also murdered. Is there a connection between the two deaths? Full Review

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