Thorne McKelvie has meticulously and ruthlessly worked his way up through the ranks of criminal organisation the Hangmen, a group that doesn’t shy away from human trafficking in sweat shops, drug or arms smuggling. The leader of the Hangmen is suspicious of Thorne, however, and worried that he is gunning for his spot next, taking over the whole organisation. So after a series of unexpected attacks on the gang’s and their allies’ warehouses, he sees an opportunity to have Thorne framed and removed as a […]
A war-time fable that didn’t really work for me
Nine-year-old Bruno lives in a big house in Berlin and is not at all happy when the household is packed up and he, his mother, his older sister and the servants are forced to travel by train to a new house, far away in the desolate countryside. He misses the bustling city, the house with such a great banister for sliding down, his grandparents, his friends, even his school. At the new house, there is no one to play with, just a small garden and […]
On Reinvention, or Lying
Unbecoming is a novel featuring a possibly unreliable and rather unlikeable narrator named Grace. The story alternates between 24-year-old Grace in present-day Paris and Grace several years ago in Garland, Tennessee, where she grew up. A crime has been committed and a couple of Grace’s friends have gone to jail. What responsibility does Grace have for what happened? What is it that Grace really wants? It seems that Grace has always wanted something else, something other than what life has given her, and she has […]
1, 2, the Chandrian’s comin’ for you…
Part coming of age story and part sword and sorcery adventure story, The Name of the Wind is a masters class in fantasy world building that unfortunately gets bogged down when the action switches to a University setting. Kote spends his days running the inn on the side of a road in a tiny town. Dark days have descended on the land. Black spider like demons terrorize the populace, raiders are common on the roads, and whispers of an ancient evil are becoming louder. One […]