Elliott Rodgers

The Most Beautiful Thing

Fiona’s latest novel The Most Beautiful Thing, the story of Joe Salt, a quirky fourteen year old who seems to suffer from a significant level of Autism, although this is never confirmed. Fiona writes beautifully quickly drawing us into the world of Joe as he goes through daily life. Joe goes to spend a summer in Amsterdam with his Aunt Nel, I loved the way Fiona described Amsterdam through Joe’s eyes and made me tempted to go visit Amsterdam.

As Joe’s story unfolds revealing the whole emotional range happy, sad, tenderness, anguish, love and tragedy it is written so well I found it addictive and as tired as I was in the middle of the night couldn’t stop reading it. I ended up reading it in one sitting, interrupted only for food and dog walking!

This book deserves it’s place in my favourite books list, I recommend it and I have no doubt I will be reading it again soon.

I already have the simply brilliant book Is It Just Me or is Everything S**t? The Encyclopaedia of Modern Life by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur (and I have Volume 2 as well!)

Given my intense enjoyment of previous books by the same authors; a history of participating in protest marches; taking part in various political campaigns both internet and IRL; and a distinct dislike of the current government I was fairly confident I would like Sorry, But Has There Been a Coup by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur.

Out of the three books, I would definitely say Sorry, But Has There Been a Coup is my favourite, how can you not enjoy a book which addresses such questions as So remind me, how many people voted Tory again? “10,703,654 people voted Tory. The total population of the country is nearly 62 million. So that’s no-one, basically.” while still addressing such other delightful questions as How hard is David Cameron?.

What I found really clever and interesting about this book, was the way in which the authors carefully kept the readers entertained by amusing language, political satire and “fun” questions while sneaking in highly relevant questions which would (hopefully) make a few readers think about issues they might not have been aware of. A good example of this was the question What percentage of the UK are millionaires? (0.46%) followed by the question What percentage of the Cabinet are millionaires (75% with the comment Although admittedly, some of them only got that rich by fiddling their expenses). You laugh and then realise that the Cabinet are supposed to represent the people.

Those who want to learn a few things about modern politics and the current government while being made to laugh so much you may just wet yourself a little bit should definitely give it read. I thoroughly recommend this book to everybody.. well almost everybody there’s swear words which may not be suitable for all readers AND Tories probably wouldn’t like it much, those who think that David Cameron is the best thing to happen to this country since Maggie definitely wont like it…

You can buy Sorry, But Has There Been a Coup from Amazon.

I’ve been reading Raymond E Feist’s epic series about Midkemia for just shy of twenty five years, I was fourteen when Veronica, a Residential Social Worker at the Children’s Home I was living in, gave me a well worn copy of Magician and I was hooked. I’ve reread all of the books (there’s now a total of 28 books IIRC) several times over. None of the books disappointed me, I’ve felt pleased for characters, I’ve cried when characters have died, celebrated with them, felt angry at the way they’d been treated (by other characters)…

Having waited patiently for months I bought A Crown Imperilled on Kindle and it proved an exception – I expected a LOT better than I got. There were glaring grammatical errors throughout the book, spelling mistakes and several continuity errors – one of which was major; mixing up two of the major characters so they swap places between the start of the book and the middle!). I read a lot of first books on Kindle, including quite a few that are independently published and understand that authors make mistakes – I really didn’t expect that from REF and a multi national publisher. I quickly got the impression that the version that had gone to Kindle wasn’t the proofread version. What was a fantastic story was in part spoilt by all the mistakes.

The whole story to me seemed rushed and not as polished and well thought out as the previous books. REF has said himself that he is drawing the saga to a close in the next book (the title has been announced – worryingly it’s to be called Magician’s End), without giving away any spoilers and plot hints the penultimate book in the series seemed for me to have created more questions than it answered. When I got to the end of the book, the story didn’t seem to have a proper conclusion – it just seemed to stop abruptly (being a Kindle I couldn’t “feel” how much of the book was left).

Unless you are really desperate to find out what’s going to happen after reading A Kingdom Besieged (and not many of the questions will be answered) I strongly recommend waiting before ordering the Kindle version or the print version; reviews on Amazon would tend to show that problems with the Kindle version are in the printed version as well. Hopefully between HarperCollins and Amazon they’ll sort out the problems. If you want to go ahead and order it you can order either the Hardback version or The Kindle Version at Amazon.

If and when HarperCollins and Amazon release an updated version I will review the book again.

So there I was stood in my local Waterstones pondering what books to buy when I saw someone photographing a pretty woman by a pile of books… Now I always like to share the knowledge with a photographer just you know one of those things I do I’m like that (especially if there’s a pretty lady involved). Apparently a novelist, Caroline Rance was signing her first novel, Kill-Grief. As I checked the novel intrigued by the title and cover, Caroline Rance, the pretty lady, came over to introduce herself and asked if I was interested in the book but warned me I’d need a strong stomach for some bits. I told her I had been discovering the joys of Bernard Cornwell and was qualified as an Emergency Medical Technician so any bloodthirsty bits wouldn’t be a problem (They weren’t as bad as I thought either). The name was slang in the 18 Century for gin, which is almost an additional character in the book.

Kill-Grief, is set in 1756, in Chester, at an infirmary and tells the story of Mary Helsall, who starts a job as a nurse. The infirmary is no sweet and charming Holby City Hospital and nurses are far from Florence Nightingale. As the novel unfolds we find out Mary has a secret and seeks solace in gin and an on off relationship with Anthony, a hospital porter. A diseased beggar turns up at the infirmary and it soon becomes obvious Mary has a whole collection of secrets to hide.

I really enjoyed reading Kill-Grief, I had expected it to be a kind of “story of a nurse” set in the eighteenth century with a romantic twist, it was so much more. Caroline Rance so obviously spent an awful long time on research for Kill-Grief, it shows in the small details that she includes, the language of the characters and which transports you completely into the characters’ lives. In places Caroline writes eloquently and beautifully about Mary’s feelings for Anthony while in others with a brutal sense of coarse vulgarity that is sharp, precisely what is needed and accurate for the 18th Century. There are places with some blood and gore but Caroline Rance doesn’t go over the top and uses it when it wasn’t warranted.

Kill-Grief for me was one of those books I started to read and didn’t want to put down. If I hadn’t been told I wouldn’t have realised that it was Caroline Rance’s first ever novel. My only real disappointment was when I came to the end of the book, I wanted to read more about Mary and Anthony, Caroline Rance had bought them to life so well I didn’t want to say goodbye to them, she hasn’t ruled out coming back to the story in the future (fingers crossed she does).

If you read one book this year, I’d suggest making it Kill-Grief, I can’t see you being disappointed. Since reading it I’ve found out Caroline Rance is working on her second novel at the moment, I’ll definitely be buying it as soon as it reaches Waterstones whether Caroline Rance is signing copies or not. You can buy Buy Kill-Grief from Amazon or The Book Depository.

Caroline Rance has her own website at www.carolinerance.co.uk/ and a blog all about historical medicines, powders and potions and such like – Quack Doctor. Caroline can be found on Twitter http://twitter.com/quackdoctor

This review was originally in my blog on 13th August 2009 and has been updated.

Like Bees To Honey is the latest novel by the amazingly talented Caroline Smailes. Her previous novels were very dark, Like Bees To Honey still has dark bits but these are interspersed with some brilliantly quirky, funny moments and imagery that will stay with you forever.

Nina is grief stricken and trapped by her past, unable to look forward to the future. Every day her grief spoils her life and drives a wedge between her relationships with those around her who love her. She leaves her husband Matt and daughter Molly behind and travels back to Malta with her son, to confront her painful past. Cast out from her staunchly religious family for becoming pregnant with Christopher out of marriage. Can she reconcile her past and mend old, but so obviously painful wounds?

Malta is a halfway house for dead spirits, between the here and whatever happens next. Nina has always been able to see the dead, a gift she passed onto her son, Christopher. These spirits bring an extra dimension to a story and bring an unusual way for Caroline to expose the many fascinating aspects of Nina’s story. As the twists and turns of Nina’s past come to light, with shocks and surprising, Caroline writes in a way that made me ache for Nina, cry for her and hope for a happy ending. There’s so much more I’d like to add but really don’t want to spoil someone discovering the book for themselves.

Sprinkled throughout Like Bees To Honey were fascinating like facts and stuff about Malta making it sound a tempting holiday destination. The snippets of Maltese added a further element to the story, that through clever writing actually drew me further into the story rather than spoiling the flow.

Every so often I read a book that stays with me, with characters that are so alive that after the last page is turned I desperately wish there was a next novel so I can check in on how they are doing. Like Bees To Honey was such a novel and will stay with me for a long time. Like Bees To Honey, is another of Caroline Smailes’ novels that’s on my list of must read books. I can’t recommend it enough. Get yourself something nice to drink, some nibbles, some tissues and a comfy place to sit. Like Caroline’s other books you wont want to stop reading once you start.

Caroline Smailes website and blog can be found at: http://www.carolinesmailes.co.uk/ and you can buy Like Bees To Honey from Amazon. You can find Caroline Smailes on Twitter http://twitter.com/Caroline_S

Like Bees To Honey is the second of Caroline Smailes’ novels that I’ve reviewed (The other was In Search of Adam)