Holly by Stephen King, 2023, Scribner, 449pp. Available in ebook and audiobook formats. Nearly any writer who has written fiction more than about ten pages in length has encountered what I call “character creep.” You start out with a “throwaway” character, a red-shirt whose only real purpose is to die in chapter three and alert …
Magical Midlife Madness by K.F. Breene First book, Leveling Up series Paperback – Independently published February 18, 2020 Language : English Paperback : 330 pages I don’t normally read what is called ‘romance fiction.’ The samples I’ve seen tended to be both witless and dreary, and some would make you swear …
The Art of War by Peter Cawdron copyright 2023 ASIN : B0C47ZT9QM Mark is off to a roller-coaster start. He is in Paris, and falls in love, something that has been known to happen. He is America’s leading astronaut, a legend in the corps and with the public because of his luck in …
The Theradane Cycle: 1 by Scott Lynch © 2018 Scott Lynch, Published by Scott Lynch at Smashwords, ISBN 978-0-692-19212-2 (ebook) I did a review a month or so ago of Gentleman Bastard, a trilogy by Scott Lynch. I happened to compare it to Samuel Delany’s short masterpiece, “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” …
Duds on Display: A review of some real dogs As people may have noticed, I don’t usually write negative reviews. Oh, I have on a couple of occasions, but in both instances it was for something that started out brilliantly, got my hopes way up, and then fell apart disastrously. They were just good enough …
The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards , Book 1 ) Book 1 of 3: Gentleman Bastard | by Scott Lynch | Jun 27, 2006 752pp Spectra Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastards , Book 2) Book 2 of 3: Gentleman Bastard | by Scott Lynch | Jul 31, 2007 578 pp Del Rey …
Peter Cawdron, (c) 2023, 415pp Anthony is a seemingly unremarkable teen apprentice to an chemist/herbalist/alchemist at an apothecary stall on the outskirts of Westminster, a small town not far from the city of London. Westminster, like Anthony, seems usual, but like Anthony, has a feature that makes it rather extraordinary. About a quarter mile from …
Beyond the Burn Line, Paul J. McAuley (Gollancz 978-1-39960-371-3, £22.00, 455pp, hc) September 2022. This tale opens with a clerk, a young fellow pursuing a promising career in anthropology and geology, until one day, his mentor, a jolly Fezziwigg-type scholar, dies. So sad. The mentor had been investigating reports of strange lights in the sky …
Fairy Tale Author Stephen King Illustrators Gabriel Rodríguez & Nicolas Delort Publisher Scribner Publication date September 6, 2022 At one point or another, a lot of fiction writers, usually already in a particular genre, decide to take a crack at writing a story in Fairyland. The results, at best, are mixed. The last such effort …
Kismet: A Thriller Amina Akhtar, Copyright 2022, 333p, Pub: Thomas and Mercer The description of this book on Amazon reads, “From Amina Akhtar comes a viciously funny thriller about wellness—the smoothies, the secrets, and the deliciously deadly impulses. Lifelong New Yorker Ronnie Khan never thought she’d leave Queens. She’s not an ‘aim high, dream big’ …