The Norwood Author

by Alistair Duncan



When I was ten years old, I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, so I was delighted to be asked to review this book about his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Whilst scholarly in scope and attention to detail, The Norwood Author is also an accessible read and you don’t have to be an expert on Holmes or Conan Doyle to enjoy it.

Alistair Duncan gives some fascinating insights into the period during which Conan Doyle lived in the Norwood area of London. He recreates the local intrigues of the time (1891-1894) including squabbles at the local Literary and Scientific Society and the triumphs of the local cricket team both of which Conan Doyle was deeply involved with.

This book also gives tantalising glimpses into aspects of life at the time. An anecdote about a dead child, for example, illustrates the huge differences between now and then in policing technique and procedures.

What is particularly interesting are the explanations of how Conan Doyle’s time in Norwood surfaced in his writing and in the names he gave to his characters and how his love of golf, which was nurtured during this period, also began to creep into his plots. We also find out about his links to other writers including Jerome K Jerome and JM Barrie.

Alongside his discussion of the great detective Holmes, Alistair Duncan also demonstrates his own detective work in investigating and answering some questions about Conan Doyle that have previously been unanswered.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it one sitting. I recommend it to you as a good source of information on Conan Doyle, but also as an interesting snapshot of life in a London suburb in the late nineteenth century.

This and other books by Alistair Duncan are available here and you can read Alistair’s blog here.



Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

The Dawning

by Megan Taylor

The Dawning by Megan Taylor is an indulgent and very focussed read. The story unravels over the space of about twelve hours from New Year’s Eve onwards.

One family's secrets overflow from the first page and they sweep the reader along. Unfolding with perfect symmetry, the plot is as unsettling as the approach of a summer thunderstorm and as irresistible as the warm summer rain that follows.

I stayed up late reading this and would then wake during the night thinking about it. It's a great novel and one which I will read again.

You can treat yourself to a copy here or here and you can visit Megan at her blog.

Reviewed by DJ Kirkby

Of Bees And Mist

by Erick Setiawan


This novel is an absolutely beautiful read. It weaves threads of magic through a cloth of reality so cleverly that it is hard to see the join. As you read you will find yourself accepting the impossible as entirely likely.

We start the story in the company of young Meridia, daughter of the mysterious Ravenna and Gabriel. We follow her as she meets Daniel and, with him, hopes to escape her house of mists only to find that things get even worse when she is confronted by the angry bees at her in-laws’ house.

There is an absolute joy in the use of language running throughout the story, and Setiawan’s descriptive powers are second to none. From the hustle and spectacle of Independence Plaza to the roses and marigolds of Orchard Road the writing is intensely visual.

Scenes are set with meticulous attention to detail. Ravenna’s kitchen full of pointless activity and the hissing of skillets contrasts with Gabriel’s forbidding study with its hopeless pursuit of knowledge.

Mysteries run through the story and carry the reader forward. What is Eva really up to? What is the source of Patina’s suffering? Will Daniel prove himself as a husband? And, running through the entire story is the intermittent presence of the ethereal Hannah.

‘Of Bees And Mist’ will truly allow you to lose yourself in another world. It is a world where strange and unexpected things happen. It is full of emotion, danger and confusion. The conclusion comes as a satisfying surprise after a twisting plot which will keep you guessing until the end.

Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

Starting Over

by Sue Moorcroft


From the very first page when Tess Riddell is unceremoniously dumped via email by her self-serving fiancé, Olly, to the next when we see her crashing her Freelander during a particularly heavy downpour straight into the breakdown truck of the local garage owner, the handsome, but surly, Miles Rattenbury, better known as Ratty, this book keeps you reading. The constant twists and turns make you want to read just that bit more to find out what happens next.

Tess soon manages to insult Ratty, which makes her feel she probably has not made the best start to her new life in the village that she was hoping to make home. Running away is what Tess does well, and this new neighbourhood she has chosen to start again in has its fair share of characters. She rents a cosy cottage with wonky windows, next door to Lucasta, an ancient lady with more of a past than you would first imagine. Apart from wanting to be accepted, Tess longs for peace and tranquillity to create the illustrations she has been contracted to do for her agent in London.

She slowly makes friends, and as Ratty is one of the group, they begin to spend a lot of time together. With her innate distrust of men and his playboy, commitment-phobic lifestyle, do they stand any chance of getting together, let alone making any sort of relationship other than friendship work? When they do finally appear to be working out their differences, his ex-girlfriend comes along to make Tess wonder if she ever would mean anything to him at all.

This is a thoroughly entertaining book, full of twists and turns, great characters, and enticing romantic moments to keep you wanting to read on and find out if Tess and Ratty do finally overcome their differences and manage to get together.

Definitely worth reading.

Reviewed by Debs Carr

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

Take out the letter Z and put in II and you would get a perfect telling of an actual war. The zombie war hasn’t actually happened but Max Brooks does a great job of making it seem as if it has.

The war is told to us in a collection of individual stories from different people who survived it. People from all across the globe, even those in the international space station, get to tell their story of survival.

WWZ is a follow up book to The Zombie Survival Guide, also by Brooks. Brooks actually mentions the survival guide in WWZ as a book that people used to help them.

The best part about WWZ is that Brooks uses a fictional tale of zombies to make wonderful social comments about the world today. Brooks uses real life world issues to tell his story; such as a Palestinian boy living in Kuwait refusing to believe that there are zombies, thinking that it is a trick by Israel.

The story raises the question of whether there is a victory or not. The epidemic still rages in many different parts of the world, but humanity is surviving and fighting back.

Reviewed by Mollie

Remembrance Day

by Leah Fleming


This is a beautifully crafted book with a poignancy that will stay with me for a long time to come.

It begins with a narrowly avoided tragedy during a hot summer’s day in 1913, the result of which irrevocably ties two families together forever, setting in motion catastrophic twists in the futures of everyone involved.

Blacksmith’s daughter, Selma Bartley becomes involved with upper class Guy Cantrell. However their budding romance is discovered by his mother, Lady Hester, who will not let anything divert her from stopping this unsuitable young woman distracting her son from the future he has been trained to follow.

Guy’s twin brother, Angus, bearing the consequences of his high spirits, takes his chance to live life to the full and secretly replaces his recuperating brother on the battlefields in France resulting in a tragedy that will resonate through both families for decades.

The forbidden love between Selma and Guy is heartbreaking and the selfish, misguided actions of others force them apart and on to paths neither had ever anticipated following. Both strong-minded they separately deal with the blows life has given them; making choices that will take them away from everything they know.

This book is so beautifully written that once I’d started reading I found it hard to put it down, ending up losing hours in the story, which kept me riveted and wanting to know how, if at all possible, Selma and Guy could possibly resolve their differences.

The ending was satisfying. Having read so many books, I can usually guess what the outcome between characters will be, with this book however I didn’t know, which made it all the more enjoyable.

This is one of the best books I read last year and I look forward to reading Leah Fleming’s other novels.

Reviewed by Debs Carr

The Gates

By John Connolly



It seems like only weeks ago that "The Lovers", Connolly's most recent addition to the Charlie Parker series, was keeping me awake. And now Connolly is back with another hero who finds himself in conflict with something not entirely of this world.

Instead of a world-weary private eye with a couple of hit-man accomplices, Connolly gives us this time a small boy (Samuel Johnson) prone to engaging his teachers in philosophical debates about angels and pinheads, accompanied by (among others) a small dog, the captain of the school cricket team, and an exiled demon with a penchant for wine gums and fast cars.

Connolly has made previous excursions from the Charlie Parker universe, most notably "The Book of Lost Things", a melancholy, but captivating, fantasy featuring a boy hero but no more a children's book for all that than is, say, Stephen King and Peter Straub's "The Talisman".

And "The Gates", too, is not entirely a children's novel; more a novel for adults who wish that children's books had been like this when they were children. Footnotes abound (Adams and Pratchett have a lot to answer for) and serve to supply a home for all those jokes and observations that writers slap down in their notebooks in the hope that one day they will find a bottom-of-the-page use for them. Lavatory humour is almost entirely absent; one or two examples waft delicately across the pages to satisfy the younger audience - for this will, despite my saying it is not exactly a children's book, find a younger audience; those who would never knowingly open a Harry Potter and are, perhaps, growing out of Roald Dahl.

The plot is satisfyingly paced and involves a scientific malfunction opening a gateway between Hell and here (here being a small market town somewhere in England), and a resulting attempted invasion from the underworld. Some very unpleasant demons (a number almost straight from the brush of Heironymus Bosch) wreak havoc on police stations, pubs, and village ponds, while resourceful humans (mostly of the younger variety) find a number of inventive ways of postponing the seemingly inevitable.

The way is left open for sequels, and if Connolly can produce them without slowing down the narrating of Charlie Parker's life, then that is all to the good. Although never, perhaps, inspiring midnight queues outside branches of Waterstones, I can see Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell inspiring a loyal following, a long-running series, cinema appearances and inflating prices for first editions. I shall just go and encase mine in bubble-wrap in preparation for that day - or maybe not. Books are, after all, for reading, and I am sure that this one will bear another once-over in future.

Reviewed by Mike Deller