Difference between revisions of "Newest Humour Reviews"

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[[Category:Humour|*]]
 
[[Category:Humour|*]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]__NOTOC__
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Marian Keyes
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|author=Dean Koontz
|title=Making It Up As I Go Along
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Entertainment
+
|genre=Paranormal
|summary=Oh, how the book reviewing gods like to give, and equally like to take awayHere before me is a brand, spanking new collection of journalism by the wonderful Marian Keyes – but it's a proof copy, so there's no photo of the author. Even if over the years I have stopped reading her novels, I have always turned to the author picture to remind myself such sights exist in this worldHimself is a lucky man, for sureBut beyond sounding like a letch, what can I say about this – the beauty's third large dose of essays, web columns and other journalism? I can start with agreeing that I am not the target audience, but it's easy enough to see from these pages exactly what the target isSo much like that test you do – you know the one, that formulates decisions about the age and commonality of all things in space to come up with how many billions of planets are likely to have alien life on – you can narrow things down quite readily here, and still come up with a huge number.
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|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashedOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luckHe is a nice personA really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good personSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718182529</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500491
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Jean-Yves Ferri
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|isbn=1529153050
|title= Asterix and the Missing Scroll (Album 36)
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|rating= 5
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|author=Tim Benson
|genre= For Sharing
 
|summary=Asterix is those rarest of book series; one designed for kids which is actually even funnier when you are an adult. I used to love Asterix as a child, but now that I reread them I can't help but wonder why, because they are so full of hilarious jokes that I definitely wouldn't have understood when I was younger. I laughed loud and hard to myself twice within the first two pages of Asterix and the Missing Scroll, so I'd definitely say that this was a hit.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1510100458</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Spadge Whittaker
 
|title=Braver Than Britain, Occasionally
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=In which Spadge researches Britain's top ten fears and faces them all over the course of a year. We're quite a fearful society, you know. And the things we fear most are, in order: heights (acrophobia), snakes (ophidiophobia), public speaking (glossophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), small spaces (claustrophobia), mice (musophobia), needles (trypanophobia), flying (pteromerhanophobia), crowds (agoraphobia) and clowns (coulrophobia).
+
|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993429904</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Mike Bullen
 
|title= Trust
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= General Fiction
 
|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trust
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dan Rhodes
+
|isbn=1785633074
|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow
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|title=Staggering Hubris
 +
|author=Josh Berry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary= Two people are on a train on their way to, of all things, a WI meeting where the ladies of All Bottoms will be lectured on the non-existence of God.  One of the two people is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''.  The other is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'.  Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets in and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottom.  Instead the pair fetch up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wife.  This clash of titanic opinions, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedy, but one with the legs to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in the past…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709018</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rob Temple
 
|title=Very British Problems Abroad
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Meet, if you haven't already, the phenomenon of the Very British ProblemIn this format they're in pithy little comments (of, ooh, about 140 characters in length, for some reason…) and detail the minor things in life that we like nothing more than to inflate to a major factor of lifeThey can involve manners, staring at things until they mend themselves, hitting things ditto, or the fact that nobody apart from you and I know how to queue properly.  And if the idea hits the world outside our shores, then – well, you certainly have a book full of content regarding our attitude and ineptitude abroad.
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|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the governmentWe are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fraser McAlpine
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|isbn=0571365884
|title=Stuff Brits Like
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
 +
|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= With over 100 chapters on different aspects of Britain and Britishness, this book is both fascinating and hilariousJust looking at the list of subjects is enough to produce a sardonic twist of that stiff upper lip: the chapters cover topics that range from offal to curry, from pedantry to banter, from conkers to rugby. There may be many chapters but this is no academic tome - each chapter is just two to three pages long, each is written with endearing affection, each is easy and satisfying - and quirkily funny - to read.
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|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a childShe would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between.  On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886348</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= John Samuel
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|author=John Boyne
|title= What I Tell You in the Dark
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|title=The Echo Chamber
|rating= 3.5
+
|rating=5
|genre= Humour
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A man called Will is fighting fiercely against corruption – desperate to expose his company's dodgy dealings to the press. Overcome with doubt and fear, he goes to kill himself. But, at the exact moment he attaches his noose to the back of the door, he is saved. By a curious housemate or a concerned girlfriend? No, by an Angel. Not the white-feathered guardian Angel you may expect, but one who wishes to help Will achieve his ends, and so possess the body of the hapless Will in order to finish what he started. It goes without saying that the Angel is hoping things go better than they did with the last guy he possessed – a hapless young man from Galilee called Jesus…
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|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650505</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857526219
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= John Niven
+
|author=Stephen Clarke
|title= The Sunshine Cruise Company
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Humour
 
|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barry, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon, it transpires that he has been leading a hidden life for years, and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susan's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injustice, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bank, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money and a terminally ill grandson, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventure.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marie Phillips
 
|title=The Table Of Less Valued Knights
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to the Table of Lesser Valued Knights.  The only way to get his comfier seat back is to redeem himself via a quest.  Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancé, Humphrey and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forth.  Meanwhile in the kingdom of Tuft, new Queen Martha has run away after a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwin.  She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555875</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tim Flannery
 
|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Meet Archie Meek.  He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled.  That's not to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body.  But what's this?  When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork.  And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished.  Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Roman Dirge
 
|title=The Cat with a Really Big Head
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary= How many picture books are there about cats?  And how many do you know that you would really NOT prefer your children to see?  If the answer to the second question is 'none – yet', scratch that last word.  The title piece in this collection is, by the author's own admission, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick (the 'Elephant Man') of the feline world – who struggles to sneak up behind a mouse when the shadow of his head is a total giveaway, and who can hardly even eat with dignity as bending down to his bowl would break his neck.  If that's too dark or oddball for you, try the second major piece, which has a most revealing foreword – ''Dedicated to a certain girl… I hope your life is filled with wonderful accomplishments, love and all the magic you desire… - But I hope your death is slow and horrible.''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782762876</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Val Hennessy
 
|title=Not Far From Dreamland
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrierWhat Ronald ''has'' got is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'the shack'), a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply.  On the plus side he has friends, mostly platonic and usually in much the same boat as RonaldBut are they downhearted?  Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble sales.  ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.
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|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond.  Or Ian FlemingBut it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active serviceLemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>
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|isbn=2952163855
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Harry Harrison
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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|title=Bill, the Galactic Hero
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|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|rating=3.5
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|rating=2.5
|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet BillHe's a simple farmer well, he ''is'' taking a correspondence course in being a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in store.  And so does the mechanised, technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts to fight the Chingers, in mankind's first inter-galactic war.  Still, at least he gets medals just for signing upAfter that it's all downhill, and the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line downReally, what hope is there?
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|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of itI found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on.  It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, tooBut you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themSo what happened?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529402697
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Doescher
+
|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
|title=William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace
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|title=But Never For Lunch
|rating=4.5
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|author=Sandra Aragona
|genre=Humour
+
|rating=4
|summary= Join us, good gentles, for a merry reimagining of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare could have written it. 'Tis a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fights, soliloquies and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays the thing, wherein you'll catch the rise of Anakin!
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|genre=Short Stories
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748063</amazonuk>
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|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
 +
 
 +
You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you?  We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador...  They have left The Career and settled in Rome.  Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Attaboy
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|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|title=The Book of Hugs
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|title=The Karma Trap
 +
|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=A hug's a hug, OK? You either do, or you don't.  Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about the process whilst others are more elegant in the execution of the hug, but basically you just get on and do it and then forget about it, right?
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|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single.  She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman.  She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0867197978</amazonuk>
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}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=David C Mason
 +
|title=Pandora's Gardener
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified.  That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day.
 +
|isbn=0956180523
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Christopher Fowler
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|isbn=Jester_Forever
|title= Bryant and May – The Burning Man
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|title=Forever After: a dark comedy
 +
|author=David Jester
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
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|genre=Horror
|summary= The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set of overlords.  For reasons that were explored in the previous couple of outings they have been transferred to the City Of London Police.  The Met are still the big players in the area. City of London Police only police the old city, the square mile, the financial district in other words, that has very little in the way of street crime, because no-one lives there anymore and the people who work there are, by and large, either too rich to need to steal, or too smart to have to do so on the streets.
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|summary=Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522043</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
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|isbn=1683691172
|title=The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!
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|title=William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls
|rating=3.5
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|author=Ian Doescher
 +
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Following the success of ''The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules'', the League of Pensioners are back – and this time, they’re in Vegas! I haven’t read the first book but it was on my list when the opportunity arose to review this one. The idea of the League of Pensioners marching towards a fairer world through fun and frolics was hugely appealing to me and this is a stand alone novel so I thought I would dive straight in with this one.
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|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so ancient, dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447274903</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Winshluss
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|isbn=168369094X
|title=In God We Trust
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|title=William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!
 +
|author=Ian Doescher
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
+
|genre=Humour
|summary=To start with, a rhetorical testHow about God and Adam playing badminton day in and day out, until one gets bored and decides to create Eve?  Or the defeater of Goliath and the saviour of the Israelites being one Conan the Barbarian?  Or this as a test – Jesus Himself failing to have a successful session of tequila slammers with Gabriel due to the holes through His hands?  I barely need mention that in these pages God does battle with Superman, for you to have answered the test and put yourself firmly in one of two camps for this book – one very much opposed to buying it, and one very much in favour.
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|summary=A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suitedIt was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write.  In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs.  And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662350</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Walliams and Tony Ross
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|isbn=1473669065
|title=The Queen's Orang-Utan
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|title=Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel
 +
|author=Ruth Hogan
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Humour
|summary=The Queen felt trapped in the palace with all those stuffed animals which she has been given on foreign tours. There are mountains of them and every night she would dream of escaping. When her birthday drew near the family dutifully asked her what she would like as a present. The Prince was thinking of a gold, diamond encrusted stairlift whilst the Duke was considering a great big bottle of brandy.  The Royal Baby had some decorated thimbles in mind, but the Queen became just a little snappish as she explained that what she really wanted was 'One's own orang-utan'. And she didn't mean a stuffed one, either.
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|summary=Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008135134</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jack Sheffield
+
|isbn=1683690346
|title=Silent Night
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|title=The Con Artist
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Fred Van Lente
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years ago, and enjoyed them very much. They were written in a similar style to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or [[:Category:Gervase Phinn|Gervase Phinn]], told mostly in the first person, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at a small village primary school in Yorkshire. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552167045</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=J Robert Lennon
 
|title=See You In Paradise
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=Lennon writes with a relaxed, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks of life, without being in any way stereotypical. Many of the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrations, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that you're obviously supposed to root for (the only exception is the industrialist in the eponymous tale, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat). There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head'', for example, the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable and unfair. For me, the most unsettling story is ''No Life'', because it portrays a decent couple at the mercy of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work here, just ordinary characters at the mercy of social power.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lynne Truss
 
|title=Cat out of Hell
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Horror
 
|summary=Meet Alec Charlesworth.  He's retired and decamped to an isolated coastal cottage with just his dog and loving memories of his colleague wife, now that she has died before her time.  But the fusty librarian cannot rest too long before engaging in exploring some unusual computer files that were pinged across by someone at the college he worked at, just before he left.  Bizarrely they show photographic and audio evidence of a talking cat called Roger, replete with Vincent Price voice – although they are also damaged by being included alongside some bad screenplay attempts about said cat.  Worryingly, we soon see what at the most only a few of the characters can, that this cat is being accompanied by unusual and unexpected death – much like Alec's wife.  It's only when Roger testifies to having been pushed through the ends of endurance and out the other side that we begin to doubt where the true evil in this story lies…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099585340</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jimmy Hansen and Mychailo Kazybird
 
|title=Wallace & Gromit : The Complete Newspaper Strips Collection Vol 2
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=For me there are two important areas of the cover of this book where three letters are arranged in meaningful ways.  The first is with the S-U-N in their obligatory red and white font.  No minor paper could hold Wallace and Gromit, their adventures have to be in what is (unfortunately) the most widely read tabloid in the country. And elsewhere is C-B-E, suggesting that even the storytellers at Aardman Animations who are not household names are feted and revered as artistic experts, raising many laughs and much money for the country courtesy of their creative output.  Together these short collections of letters show just how much WaG are major creations, and if the proof was needed this much longer collection of their daily comic strips provides it in spades.
+
|summary=Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760822</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Dear Committee Members
+
|isbn=1473669588
|author=Julie Schumacher
+
|title=Falling Short
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Lex Coulton
|genre=General Fiction
+
|rating=4
|summary=Jason Fitger (Jay) is a Professor of creative writing and literature at a small university in the American mid-west. He is also a frustrated novelist with a colourful personal history, much of which bleeds into his professional life, with interesting results.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007586345</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Mapp and Lucia Omnibus
 
|author=E F Benson
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Miss Elizabeth Mapp rules the town of Tilling - she is the centre of the social life, and spends her days enjoying bridge, polite conversation and civilised painting. When Mrs Emmeline Lucas arrives in town (known to all as Lucia), Miss Mapp finds her life truly shaken up, as the cultured, fashionable and progressive Lucia makes her home in the town, and swiftly rises to the top of the ranks amongst the social scene in Tilling.
+
|summary=Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother.  This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908478</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Encyclopedia Paranoiaca
+
|isbn=1683690133
|author=Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf
+
|title=My Lady's Choosing
 +
|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
+
|genre=Humour
|summary=We're screwed. Wherever we look, whatever we think of doing, there is a reason why we shouldn't be doing it, and people to back that reason up with scientific data.  Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eat, how you work, how you rest even, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worse. And outside that daily sphere there are economic disasters, nuclear meltdowns, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at the blink of an eye.  Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last…
+
|summary=You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Diary of a Mad Diva
+
|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|author=Joan Rivers
+
|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Nina Stibbe
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=The late Joan Rivers was, without a doubt, a character. Actress, comedian, writer, director, presenter, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue and no holds barred persona. This was the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014.
+
|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425269027</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - The Nearly Definitive Edition
+
|isbn=Doescher_Will
|author=Douglas Adams
+
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|rating=5
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|genre=General Fiction
+
|rating=4.5
|summary=There are few series that have garnered such a cult following as 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Whether the fans have come from the radio series, the (impossibly hard) computer game, or the (well intentioned but not particularly good) film, they are everywhere.  Ask a room of people what the meaning of life is, and you can be pretty sure a good few will pipe up with '42' as the answer.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023396</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Quick Pint After Work
 
|author=Luke Lewis
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=BuzzFeed is one of the world’s best time sucks, and I’m regularly directed to the site by links from Facebook and Twitter, in between browsing the app on my phone. According to the author bio on this book, BuzzFeed is 'a social news and entertainment company', which is a fancy way of describing lots of fun lists that speak to the readership (20 words that have a completely different meaning in Manchester, 30 Things all ex-gymnasts know to be true, 40 Very British problems, yadda yadda yadda). These list work well on line when you want a quick distraction, and they’re easy to flip through, looking at the attached photos or video clips. The question then, is whether or not BuzzFeed the book will have the same appeal.
+
|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751557730</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 13:11, 2 January 2024

1662500491.jpg

Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022 by Tim Benson

4star.jpg Humour

Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition? Full Review

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Review of

Staggering Hubris by Josh Berry

4.5star.jpg Humour

Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the primus inter pares (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the prime movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch. Full Review

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Review of

My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett

4star.jpg Autobiography

Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety is the result - or so we are given to believe. Full Review

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Review of

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

5star.jpg General Fiction

Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny. Full Review

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Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

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Review of

Kokoschka's Doll by Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)

2.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened? Full Review

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Review of

But Never For Lunch by Sandra Aragona

4star.jpg Short Stories

If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in Sorting the Priorities and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf. Full Review

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Review of

The Karma Trap by Lisette Boyd

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office. Full Review

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Review of

Pandora's Gardener by David C Mason

3star.jpg Crime

John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day. Full Review

Jester Forever.jpg

Review of

Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester

4star.jpg Horror

Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat. Full Review

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Review of

William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls by Ian Doescher

2.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with Back to the Future no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so ancient, dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away… Full Review

168369094X.jpg

Review of

William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, someone thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other? Full Review

1473669065.jpg

Review of

Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

5star.jpg Humour

Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. Full Review

1683690346.jpg

Review of

The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente

4star.jpg Humour

Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. Full Review

1473669588.jpg

Review of

Falling Short by Lex Coulton

4star.jpg Humour

Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. Full Review

1683690133.jpg

Review of

My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

4star.jpg Humour

You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision... Full Review

Stibbe Xmas.jpg

Review of

An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe

4.5star.jpg Humour

Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year? Full Review

Doescher Will.jpg

Review of

William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for The Force Doth Awaken, but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… Full Review

Move on to Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews