Heaven Can Wait

By Cally Taylor

If you like romantic comedies, you’re going to love this. But even if you’ve never read a romantic comedy before, and you think they’re not really your thing, you should still read this one.

Heaven Can Wait is the story of Lucy, who dies just as she is about to marry her fiance Dan. It is a story of loss, longing and the overwhelming power of love. The story starts just before Lucy dies, and although the blurb lets you know that’s going to happen, it’s still a dramatic moment.

Lucy’s status as a ‘dead girl’ gives the story its supernatural slant, and skilful use of flashback fills in the details of Lucy’s life before death to poignant effect.

The story is told with a light touch and buckets of humour. Beware – once you have started it, you will not be able to put it down. Expect late nights until you’ve finished it.

I loved the romantic tale of Lucy’s quest to be reunited with Dan, but I also adored the story of her growing affection for her fellow residents in the ‘house of wannabe ghosts’, Claire and Brian. Despite getting off to a bad start, especially with Claire, Lucy’s journey towards understanding her two housemates gives the story an extra dimension and lifts it out of the ordinary.

There are some great cameo roles as well. Lucy’s geeky colleagues and Sally the eccentric sandwich girl particularly stand out.

Lucy manages to get herself into some hilarious situations and also some heartbreaking ones. This book really will have you laughing one minute and crying the next.

As you get towards the end of the book it becomes even more impossible to put down. You’ll be desperate to know what eventually happens to Lucy.

This novel is a real treat to savour.

Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

Double Cross

by James Patterson

Double Cross is a recent book in a long-running series of thrillers featuring the forensic profiler Alex Cross. Two of the earlier books, Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider have been made into films, featuring Morgan Freeman in the lead role.

This latest one sees Cross pitted against his old enemy Kyle Craig, as well as another new and ruthless criminal called the Audience Killer.

The pace seems relentless at times. I say seems relentless because Patterson writes in very short chapters, one of his trademarks. As a result of this, I found the book too easy to pick up and put down, despite the fast-moving story. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it did lose some of its grip on me.

I'm sure newcomers to the series will enjoy this book; it's a powerful thriller with many twists and turns. My problem is that I'm getting used to them and I felt that Patterson is now churning them out according to a formula, albeit a winning one in terms of book sales. The criminals were suitably extreme and shocking, well drawn characters but I felt that Alex Cross and the other good guys were somewhat bored with the whole thing.

Double Cross is available from Headline, ISBN 978-0-7553-4941-8.

Reviewed by Captain Black

Book news: The Man Booker winner is...

As widely predicted, Hilary Mantel was last night awarded the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for her novel Wolf Hall. The novel takes the reader behind the scenes of a tunultuous period of history, the reign of King Henry VIII.

Glasshopper

by Isabel Ashdown



In Glasshopper, Isabel Ashdown has created a beautifully poignant, multi-layered family story.

The novel presents a vivid portrayal of dysfunction as it is handed down through generations, and of the little accidents of life that make us what we are. Questions are raised about what causes dysfunction in a family or an individual and what aggravates it.

Throughout the unfolding story, echoes of tragedy are counterpointed with moments of ecstasy where it seems that everything must inevitably turn out all right.

The story is told from two points of view, that of Jake and that of Mary. We start with Jake in his teenage years and then move backwards and forwards between his narrative and that of Mary, starting when she is a young girl.

For me, one of the most beautiful things in the novel is the depiction of the relationship between Mary and her sister Rachel. But this relationship holds the seeds of the tragedy that unfolds later in the narrative. One of the strengths of the story is the way that its shocking revelations are cleverly and subtly placed within the action.

At heart, this is Jake's story and the story of his complex family. But there are also some achingly good cameos. Some of the best are: Mr Horrocks and his dog Griffin (we get some great glimpses into his world); Sandy – 'nice enough, but a bit rough'; and the ultimate fly in the ointment, Gypsy.

Isabel Ashdown's writing is full of beautiful language and evocative symbolism. We understand the story better through the imagery of birds flying free, moths getting trapped and Icarus being burnt. There is glorious detail in the writing - like the description of the gob-stopper falling out of Jake's mouth and onto the pavement – which renders it truly memorable.

I was very impressed by the masterful handling of the chronology and the weaving of the two different points of view in the story as it rushes towards its climax.

Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

Molly's Millions

by Victoria Connelly


Molly’s Millions is Victoria Connelly’s fourth book, and even though one of her books has already been made into a film, this is her first book to be published in the UK.

The bright pink cover is the first thing that attracts with this book. The second is the beginning of the first chapter where you’ll be drawn into a fun, fast-paced romantic comedy that leaves you with a smile on your face and a feeling that although Molly makes choices that we might not automatically make, they were definitely the right ones.

When hard up Molly Bailey wins £4.2 million in the lottery, rather than go on a mad spending spree, she packs up her terrier pup, Fizz into her ancient yellow Beetle and sets off on a road trip. With few plans, an unsuspecting miserly family who she knows would be horrified by her actions and would want to stop her giving away her money at all costs, and a determined journalist chasing her, she has to use her wits if she is to stay one step ahead of them.

Intent on being the one to discover the next big story, Tom Mackenzie has a companion of his own when his ten-year-old daughter is left with him by her mother. He becomes absorbed by Molly’s motives behind her generosity and, helped by tip-offs and grateful benefactors, manages to stick to her trail.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this wonderful book and can imagine it would make an excellent film too.

Reviewed by Debs Carr

The Sleeping Doll

by Jeffery Deaver

The Sleeping Doll is a crime thriller, the first one featuring Special Agent Kathryn Dance, whose speciality is interviewing suspects and using kinesics to read their body language. Anyone who's seen the TV series Lie To Me with Tim Roth will know the sort of thing I'm talking about.
I found this to be a fascinating new approach to crime fiction - new to me, anyway. The plot, as I've now come to expect with this author, was very tight and had plenty of unexpected twists and turns. You do expect there to be some twists, but you'll never second guess what they are.
Despite the engaging plot and story development, I found the overall pace to be a bit slow. This was particularly noticeable near the beginning, once the excitement of the initial events wore off (I won't spoil it by saying what happens). Later on it picks up and then accelerates even further towards the end. This more than made up for the earlier dip.
Although the book is subtitled "Introducing Kathryn Dance", Deaver fans will have met her once before in The Cold Moon, one of the Lincoln Rhyme novels. Rhyme makes a brief cameo in The Sleeping Doll as well.
That said, The Sleeping Doll feels like a spin-off and slightly inferior to the Rhyme series. Perhaps, given time, the Dance series will gain the same status. A disappointment for me, and it's a relatively small one, was that the supporting cast seem rather two-dimensional compared with the well-developed main characters. The principal criminal, Daniel Pell, was particularly well drawn. A very nasty piece of work but scarily believable!

Reviewed by Captain Black

Book news - Man Booker Prize

The shortlist for the Man Booker prize 2009 has just been announced:

The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt
Summertime - J. M. Coetzee
The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

More details can be found here.