4,5 stars When her friends tell Olivia Bevelstoke that her new neighbour is rumoured to have murdered his fiancee, she doesn’t believe it for a second. But she can’t help but be curious, and as is office window is clearly visible from her bedroom, she starts to spy on him from behind her curtains. She’s convinced he can’t see her, and becomes more and more puzzled at the things she observes. Sir Harry Valentine works for the war office, but not with anything exciting like […]
Swan Lake in the Amazon rain forest
Eighteen year old Harriet Morton lives with her stuffy professor father and strict and joyless aunt in Cambridge. Her only chance to escape the drudgery of her life is through books or the weekly ballet lessons that her father inexplicably lets her take. When she is offered a position with a travelling ballet troupe going to perform Swan Lake in a remote city up the Amazon river, but denied permission by her father, she rebels and runs away. When the troupe arrive in Manaus in South America, […]
Veronica Mars – in book form!
Spoiler warning! Avoid this book if you’ve not watched theVeronica Mars movie and want to avoid spoilers for the plot of said film, because this book follows on from the events there. Hence this review will probably spoil the movie too. Veronica is back in Neptune, working as a P.I, running Mars Investigations while her father recuperates. She’s struggling to make ends meet, not to mention paying Mac, who’s working as her office assistant. During spring break, a girl disappears from high profile party, and as […]
The Common Core Is Coming! The Common Core Is Coming!
Technically, the Common Core is already here, but in case one did not know, the saturation of “Common Core aligned” notices on various workbooks, vocabulary texts, and the deluge of Common Core-themed texts on the market would make that announcement clear enough. Anxious parents, and even more anxious and novice teachers, will soon scan these shelves to buy these Common Core-themed texts in the desperate hope that they will be enlightened. Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher’s Rigorous Reading: 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Texts (2014) is […]