VIEW POST
Lineage
The Dark Spark is the second instalment of the wonderful YA Bloodline Academy fantasy series from Ahava Trivedi. It continues the journey for Katerina Snow Quartz and her own self-discovery amidst a battle between her two bloodlines. Half witch, half vampire, unknown parents, unique abilities from both bloodlines, she has the…
VIEW POST
The Swap is an emotionally immersive story that draws three very distinctive female characters who allow avaricious choices to create a toxic set of relationships. A story that is fascinating and keenly observed, as we wonder what emotional control is possible when relationships become unhinged.
Freya was an Instagram influencer with…
VIEW POST
“The devil went down to Georgia Moscow, he was looking for a soul to steal.”—Primus
Phew! I needed a margarita after finishing The Master and Margarita! What a magnificent, turbulent read!
This extravagant Russian allegory is an adult Alice in Wonderland, bursting at the seams with mischief, darkness and rambunctiousness. The ghosts of Faust…
VIEW POST
Dominion
When I started reading this third novel in Mike Craven’s police crime series I realised just how much I had missed Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw from the National Crime Agency (NCA). Mike has struck gold with this partnership and I find myself more captivated during scenes with them…
VIEW POST
Awareness
The YA Fantasy Academy genre is currently one of the most popular genres in publishing, with the most famous being Harry Potter, Vampire Academy and Twilight. The expected tropes surrounding a vampire, a werewolf and a witch, with a coming of age story and self-discovery, are all required reading…
VIEW POST
VIEW POST
Abstruse
Stuart Turton had an ambition of writing an Agatha Christie type murder mystery and his book The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was the culmination of that objective. With echoes of Peril at End House, Agatha Christie fans will be treated to the neglected manor house, packed with dead bodies and…
VIEW POST
Disposition
Julian Barnes’ writing in this short novel speaks loudly in an often quiet reflective allegory of memory and loss. Overtly philosophical, Tony Webster, tells of his youth as a schoolboy, with two old friends Alex and Colin, and the new kid, Adrian Finn. How their ideological sense of the…
VIEW POST
“In almost every family there’s a fool or a crazy person.”—Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits is set in the capital of an unnamed Latin American country during the twentieth century, and that is where I first met the del Valles.
Patriarch, Severo del Valle, has lofty political aspirations, but his…
VIEW POST
Distracting
I was intrigued with the title Shadow of the Hunter and its reference to an old Chinese tale by Chuang-Tzu regarding the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole stalking him. Chuang-Tzu also indicates that he was illegally hunting the songbird with a cross-bow and unaware that the forester was…
Founder of The Reading Desk, supporting readers, authors, publishers and book industry. Top Reviewer on Amazon, Goodreads, and NetGalley peter@thereadingdesk.com
