Southampton author Jan Carr, has launched a Kickstarter project to print 1000 paperback copies of The Wonder Girls Resist. The Basque Children’s camp, at North Stoneham, was where Southampton welcomed and cared for nearly 4,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil war. It is the backdrop for the novel,...
Books
Book Review: The Vanishing Encore by Carolyn Ruffles
Reviewed by Chris Richards. Carolyn Ruffles has done it again! The Vanishing Encore is a worthy addition to the romantic thriller genre. Not too heavy or taxing with the right balance of mystery, thrilling twists and romance with heart warming characterisation, desperation, desire, and gentle comedy. The protagonist, Lily...
Book review: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Reviewed by Andrew Godsell. Arundhati Roy (born 1961) became an international sensation with the publication of The God of Small Things, her debut novel, in 1997. The book won the Booker Prize, received rave media reviews (thirty of which, from various newspapers and magazines, are quoted in the copy before...
Book Review: Mum’s The Word by Lorraine Turnbull
reviewed by Chris Richards. Three generations of women eventually find love is unconditional through scandal, murder, and realising what they deserve in life. We are presented; five women, the men that surround them for better and worse, three murders, one scandalous affair, and a few STDs for good measure....
Book Review: Excellent Choice by Grant Sharkey
reviewed by Chris Richards. Excellent Choice: Essays on Trying to be Good in a Horrible World written by Grant Sharkey This is not a book I’d have picked up and read had I not been asked to review it. I may not have read past the first few pages...
Book Review: Knocking On The Wall by Trevor Swistchew
reviewed by Chris Richards. Knocking on the Wall is the author’s recollections of childhood trauma, a lifetime of reactive, destructive behaviour, followed by reconciliation and reflection. Peppered through the book are poems written in close regard of times in Trevor Swistchew’s life as he grew up in Scotland. I...
Book Review: The Beasts They Turned Away by Ryan Dennis
reviewed by Chris Richards. For a book that’s a pretty standard length and steers widely around fantasy territory there is genuinely nothing standard about Ryan Dennis’s debut novel. The Beasts They Turned Away has a forensic insight with an intangible tractor beam of intrigue on every page. An aging...
Book review: Travel Light, Move Fast by Alexandra Fuller
reviewed by Frances Churchward. This book gives a factual account by Aleaxandra Fuller of her life growing up in southern Africa. At the start of the story, Alexandra has flown from Wyoming, where she has lived since 1994, to Budapest in order to be at the bedside of her...
Book review: The Pact We Made by Layla AlAmmar
reviewed by Frances Churchward. The Pact We Made is the author’s first novel . The story is told by Dahlia, the younger daughter of well-off Kuwaiti parents. Dahlia is approaching her thirtieth birthday and her mother is anxious that she should marry as she fears that Dahlia is in...
Book review: Hollow in the Land by James Clarke
reviewed by Frances Churchward. Hollow in the Land is a collection of short stories about life in a Lancashire valley. All of the tales are narrated in the first person and include stories about a range of people. The actual settings for most of the stories are within the...