Anthologies
Recent Blog Posts
Review of NETGALLEY arc A Disorganised Death – Book 5 of the Decluttering Mysteries series by Simon Brett
23 April
I am a fan of Brett’s writing. I enjoy his sharp humour, nuanced protagonists and twisty plotting. I have fun reading The Fethering Mysteries, set in a village just a few miles from where I live which gives the stories an extra layer of enjoyment, featuring investigative neighbours, Carole and Jude – see my reviews of Death on the Downs, The Liar in the Library, The Killer in the Choir, Guilt at the Garage and Death in the Dressing Room. I’ve read three of the Mrs Pargeter series – Mrs Pargeter’s Public Relations, Mrs Pargeter’s Patio and Mrs Pargeter’s Past. However, his Decluttering Mysteries series is a must-have, with the protagonist, Ellen, being one of my favourite characters – see my reviews of The Clutter Corpse, An Untidy Death and Waste of a Life and A Messy Murder. Therefore it was a no-brainer that I’d request this offering as soon as I saw it was available.
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SUNDAY POST
19 April
This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books they’ve read and share what they have got up to during the last week.
Spring is springing. I hope those of you who celebrate Easter had a good one. On Easter Sunday, we visited Petworth House with Himself’s siblings as his twin brother is going to be working in Australia for the next year and wanted to spend a day with the family before he left. We were incredibly lucky with the weather – one hailstorm while we were walking around the deer park and for the rest of the time, we had sunshine. It was lovely to meet up and catch up. And enjoy the glory of an English spring at one of the stately homes.
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Castellan the Black and his Wise Draconic Tips on Life
18 April
Dragons have an impressive number of enemies. And when we’re not battling them – we’re plotting and fighting amongst ourselves. Otherwise, we would be ruling the world.
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Review of NETGALLEY arc The Geomagician – Book 1 of The Geomagician dulolgy by Jennifer Mandula
18 April
Every schoolchild in the country now knows about Mary Anning – she of the ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore’ tongue-twister, who lived in Lyme Regis and eked out a living selling fossils to wealthy geologists. So I was intrigued to see a fantasy take on her life and times.
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Can’t-Wait Wednesday
15 April
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released.
This week’s Can’t-Wait offering: Thistlemarsh by Moorea Corrigan
Release date for the ebook – 23rd April, 2026
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Review of NETGALLEY arc Slow Gods by Claire North
14 April
I’m a fan of North’s writing, which is always thought-provoking and memorable, see my reviews of The Pursuit of William Abbey, The Sudden Appearance of Hope, Touch and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I’ve also loved her books when she was writing as Kate Griffin. Here are my reviews of A Madness of Angels and Neon from her outstanding Matthew Swift series and a review of Stray Souls from the quirky and very funny Magicals Anonymous series. But her Songs of Penelope series, looking at the events in Ithaca, while Odyssus is away fighting at Troy is superlative – see my review of The Last Song of Penelope. So when I saw this offering, I was keen to see what North would do with a science fiction setting, instead of fantasy.
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Review of NETGALLEY AUDIOBOOK The Kingdom of Almonds – Book 3 of The Mirror Realm Cycle by Ariel Kaplan
10 April
I went through a phase of avoiding epic fantasy series, as I’d trudged several doorstoppers, with loonnngggg overarching narrative arcs, with too many people I only half-remembered from one scene to another and no one I really cared about. However, recently I’ve read several series – The Nightshade Crown series springs to mind (see my review of The Nightshade God ) which I thoroughly enjoyed. This is another.
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Can’t-Wait Wednesday
8 April
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released.
This week’s Can’t-Wait offering: Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
Release date for the ebook – 26th May, 2026
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Review of NETGALLEY arc Children of Strife – Book 4 of The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
8 April
Anyone who has spent more than five minutes on this site will probably have gathered that I’m a huge fan of this author – see my reviews of: the Echoes of the Fall series The Tiger and the Wolf, The Bear and the Serpent, The Hyena and the Hawk; Redemption’s Blade: After the War, Guns of Dawn, The Expert System’s Brother, The Expert System’s Champion, Bee Speaker, Spiderlight, Ironclads, Dogs of War, Bear Head, The Doors of Eden, Firewalkers, Ogres, And Put Away Childish Things, One Day All This Will be Yours, Service Model, Shroud the Architects of Earth series – Shards of Earth, Eyes of the Void and Lords of Uncreation; Alien Clay; and The Tyrant Philosophers series – City of Last Chances, House of Open Wounds, Lives of Bitter Rain, Days of Shattered Faith and Pretenders to the Throne of God; and the Children of Time series,Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Children of Memory. This is the fourth book in the award-winning series – although I loved the first book in the series, none of the others have quite lived up to the amazing reading experience it provided – would this one be different?
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