3.5 out of 5 stars
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How I discovered this book: Amazon browse. I downloaded it on Kindle Unlimited.
Genre: Post apocalyptic, Australia.
I fancied a nice end-of-world survival scenario to read, and this was the third I tried of those I've downloaded recently. The others had the super-duper professional, currently apt covers for the genre, but what was inside didn't live up to them. This one, with the quieter, more simple cover, kept me reading.
At first I thought it was a novel by someone who just wanted to write all he knows about guns. There are a LOT of guns in this, and to be frank I skimmed much of the weapons detail because it doesn't interest me and wasn't always needed for the story. The book starts when John Timms, ex-cop survivalist and hero of the story is some way into life post-virus. I was disappointed that the whole build-up to the virus and what happened during was dealt with in a matter of two pages, and in the briefest newspaper-style reporting; I nearly abandoned at that point. But I didn't, and started to realise that the matter-of-fact, spare style of writing suited the mood of the book. People have lost everything, and are just trying to survive. Sometimes terrible things happen, and they're numb to them.
As is usual in 'road trip' stories of this genre, John is trying to get to a place of perceived safety, and meets up with others; in this case, his early companions happen to be two very fit female soldiers; well, the author is male! But, generally, it's not over-dramatised or Hollywoodised. A lot of their troubles come from Indonesians, who have paid their life savings to sharks for a passage to Aus, having been told that it's safe there. The factual detail about survival techniques is clearly well researched and was of interest to me, though I was a bit 'hmm' about where all the fuel came from. The characters work; the author clearly has that thing-you-can't-learn, ie, being able to write three dimensional characters with very little description. The one that kept me reading was Rosie, a big, tattooed, hooch-distilling farm guy who feels suited to the new world; he said he wasn't a very good farmer but made a great caveman, or words to that effect.
The other downside to the book was the punctuation; whoever proofread it needs to learn about vocative commas, as they're aren't any ("What are you doing Abi?" "John can you chuck me a towel?" "I know what you mean Sam"). But it's pretty good. If you like books of this genre in which the factual stuff seems real, and the characters don't act like King Ezekiel, pre-Saviours slaughter, you'll probably like it.
4 out of 5 stars
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How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie Amber's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.
Genre: crime, murder, dark humour
This is a collection of three novellas, and I enjoyed them all. I really liked Andy Rausch's writing style, it's right up my street; very current, intelligently witty, sharp and observant.
The first one is Easy-Peezy, set in 1920/30s America, about Emmet Dalton, a former bank robber of the late 19th century who has hung up his boots and holster, but longs to show young guns like John Dillinger how it's done. He teams up with a couple of others from the same era and sets off for one last crime spree. On its own, I'd have given this 4*.
The second, Riding Shotgun, is about a writer who find himself involved in a life of crime after his wife is killed. I liked this one slightly less, as at times 'darkly humorous' crossed the border into 'just daft', although it was still well-written. 3*.
The last story, $crilla, is easily the best, I loved it. Almost totally dialogue, and hilarious, easily 5*. Two unsuccessful gangsta rappers hatch a plot to extort money from their reluctant producer.
The language, particularly in the last one, would not suit anyone who finds authentic street talk offensive; if you don't, and can appreciate how well-observed it is, you'll love it. I felt the influence of certain TV shows and films, throughout, even in some specific lines, but I quite liked that about it. It's a good collection, professionally presented, and worth getting for the last one alone.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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How I discovered this book: I've read quite a few of Jenny Twist's short stories and novellas before, and liked them.
Genre: Short stories, miscellaneous drama.
These five stories are grouped together under the loose theme of mother love, and they are all very different. Two are flash fiction, one page long each, and I liked both of those. The others are long-short stories. The middle one is an amusing fantasy about the possible existence of fairyland (note for author: I liked the last paragraph very much). The last is the best one, I think, a piece of romantic suspense with the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War; I particularly liked the authenticity of the setting. The first is about a 1960s mother and baby home, which I was slightly less keen on, as I kept expecting a dark twist that never came. I am not, of course, criticising the author because she didn't write the story I wanted to read; this is just personal taste, and I am sure many would prefer the more promising outcome.
It's a nice collection for a couple of undemanding hours' reading.
5 GOLD stars
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How I discovered this book: I read the author's debut novel, Irex, after chatting to him on Twitter, and thought it was very good indeed, hence the purchase of this one!
Genre: WW2 Naval Thriller
This book is stunningly good. I finished it in the early hours of this morning when my eyes were tired and I wanted to go to sleep, because I had to know what happened.
The blurb (extract):
The North Atlantic, 1940. A British destroyer pounces on a seemingly abandoned U-boat, leading to a spine-chilling encounter. Five years later, the US Navy destroyer Brownlee grimly prepares to battle a swarm of Japanese kamikazes at Okinawa.
Mitch
“Lucky” Kirkham, a young gunner on the Brownlee, wakes up miraculously
unscathed after his crewmates are killed in a fearsome kamikaze strike.
Bullied
and resented amid accusations of cowardice and worse, Mitch re-boards
his patched-up ship for the long voyage back to San Francisco. All he
wants is to go home.
But far out in the boundless emptiness of
the Pacific, a strange madness begins to seize the sailors on the
Brownlee. Terror, hysteria and suicide torment the men amid sightings of
ghosts and a terrifying monster that stalks the ship by night.
Jonah ticks every single box. It's exceptionally well written, interspersed with tales from members of the crew from before the war, relevant to the plot (love little flashbacks like this!). It's meticulously researched, completely convincing, but Rackman hasn't fallen into the amateur's trap of explaining naval terms to the layman; it is assumed that the reader will gather what they mean, sooner or later, and I did. There's a glossary at the back, if you need it.
The story is utterly gripping and unpredictable, the sense of menace builds up at just the right pace, and even by the last chapter I had no idea of the outcome (and, indeed, thought it would go another way). The characterisation is well defined, the dialogue spot on, and it's edited, proofread and formatted to the best of traditional publishing standards.
It's really, really, really good. You should download it. Immediately. Definitely one of the best five books I've read this year.
4 out of 5 stars
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How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie Amber's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.
Genre: Romantic suspense, family drama.
Set in Bombay, the novel starts when Jaya, one year into an arranged marriage, discovers that her idealist, undemonstrative husband, Akash, has a lover. Criticised by her parents and feeling uncared for, her torment results in a truly shocking action, so stomach-turning I wondered if I could actually carry on reading the book. Brave of the writer to include it, and that I reacted so strongly shows that it was well-written; I did continue, anyway.
Akash is knocked sideways by Jaya's extreme reaction, and his life takes a swift, sharp turn downwards. In short, this novel is about a falling apart and slow coming together... several of them.
The first twenty per cent is about Jaya and Akash's younger years and the immediate fall-out of 'the event', after which we are moved swiftly on by being told that 'the years sped by', and suddenly it's twenty years later, when we find out how the characters' lives have fared in the interim, and what happens when they collide once more.
Nillu Nasser is a talented writer, without a doubt. One of the reasons I chose this is because I like to read about other cultures, and this book taught me stuff I didn't know, so that's a tick from me. Her storytelling ability held my interest, which is good for another big shiny red tick. On occasion the dialogue felt a little stilted, or a teensy bit Hollywood, and she fell into the debut novelist trap of using dialogue to impart information to the reader rather than keeping it realistic, but I'll cut her some slack with this; it was not constant, and, as I said, it's a debut novel, and a good one (nb, this is not her first published work, but her first published novel). Her characterisation was good; Jaya, her sister Ruhi, and their mother, were real, as were Akash, his friend, Tariq, and his lover, Soraya; Ms Nasser writes them all in clear definition, and even the secondary characters were completely convincing ~ another big tick!
I was, however, less sure about the pacing and structure. With the younger lives of Akash and Jaya taking up only around the first fifth of the book, I was given little time to care that much about what happened to them before suddenly they were older, and little had gone on in the intervening twenty years except more of the same. How much more effective it would have been to have cut the line about speeding years, and have a couple of interim chapters showing their lives after five, ten or fifteen years, too. Akash tells Soraya all he has suffered in those years, but I wanted to see it, not just read it in a spoken report. I loathe clichés, not least of all book reviewing ones, and you can't play out every scene or the book would be a thousand pages long, but in this case I needed to be shown, not told. For me (and a review is only ever a personal opinion), a slow build up could have turned this 4* book into a 5* one.
As the rest of the story unravels, Ms Nasser continues to write with authenticity, care and sensitivity, and I'd say that if you like emotional family dramas, you'll love this.
4.5 out of 5 stars
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How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie Amber's Book Review Team, of which I am a member. However, I would have bought the book anyway as I have read and reviewed all of Mr Savage's books, which speaks for itself; reviews for the others can be found by clicking his name in the 'labels' at the end of the review.
Genre: 18th century history, murder mystery. The 4th in the series, it stands alone, but I'd suggested reading the earlier books first to become acquainted with the players.
The first 35% or so of this novel takes place in the bedroom of our hero, Norfolk doctor and crime solver Adam Bascom; he is suffering from dire injuries following an accident, and, whilst recovering, is brought news of foul deeds and heinous crimes that deserve his attention. Anyone who can hold my attention with the first third of a novel set in one room (and I read every word) is worthy of applause ~ indeed, in many ways, this is the best so far of Mr Savage's novels. As well as the nicely plotted murder mystery, he has included more scene-setting, more detail about the day-to-day living of the time, and the history of the area; North Norfolk is particularly close to my heart, and the setting of his books is part of their appeal for me.
The story brings to life so well the class hierarchy of the time, and tells how for the inhabitants of coastal villagers, involvement in smuggling was a way of life; I'd love to read another Bascom book based around this. It also shows how those in power in England were concerned that the rebellion of the French peasantry would influence those in this country to rise up in the same manner.
With Adam housebound, the novel needed to step outside his Aylsham house eventually, to add drama, and I was pleased to see some chapters from other characters' points of view: Ruth Scudamore, who is absolutely my sort of girl (she has no time for fripperies and society trivia), her brother Charles, who finds himself far outside his life of genteel leisure when he joins in a military attack to stop a scuffle with a group of rebels, and Adam's groom, William, sent to uncover a mysterious 'quack' who sells his elixirs to the gullible public. I was also very impressed by a chapter written from the point of view of rebel Peter Gort, who sees himself as a swashbuckling hero of the underclasses.
I was slightly underwhelmed by the wrapping up, and would have liked to see the baddies get their comeuppance(s) rather than just hearing about it in reports and letters, and just a bit more drama and impact, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the book ~ and the delightful way in which it ended: will Adam's romantic life unfold as he wishes, after all his doubt and frustration? I look forward to the next episode, to find out!
