Madwoman in the Attic

I was very excited and grateful to be sent a copy of Daniela's first novel for teens. I had read and adored Daniela's first book a novel for adults, a wonderful romantic story set in the Scottish highlands called Watch Over Me, it was one of the fiction highlights of 2011. So I had a certain amount of expectation with this novel and I wasn't disappointed. The book opens as Sarah's parents are lowered into the ground, all the certainties of her world have come crashing down. Sarah Midnight is a wonderful creation; frightened, vulnerable and very believable she is also the calm centre of the supernatural storm raging around her. With her parents dead she must continue their work as a demon hunter and come to terms with the fact that they have not trained her to survive the danger that this entails. While Sarah battles demons using the blackwater which she draws from the earth and channels to banish them, she must also wage nightly battles as her dreams offer guidance and…

I got more books to review again!!! yay Happy Dance!! These four beauties arrived today. The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtenay and The Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson arrived from ChocLit and The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross and Pushing the Limits by Kate McGarry are from MiraInk. Can't wait to get stuck in.

I was delighted recently to read three popular fiction debuts which each in their own way deal with families, secrets and tragedies and are united by the recurring theme of water.This is How It Ends by Kathleen McMahonis the story of Bruno and Addie who are distant cousins. Irish American Bruno cut adrift from work decides to look up his Irish roots while Dubliner Addie is also out of work and looking after her aging father. The family home at Sandymount looking out to the sea and the sea itself are important recurring symbols for the author and our two protagonists meet appropriately enough at Sandymount strand. Both characters are feeling lonely and vulnerable and their connection is instant. Kathleen McMahon writes beautifully about the simple but all embracing process of falling in love. Through the characters of Bruno and Addie and those around them we learn about the family secrets and the fragility of life for as the title suggests this book is all about endings. Warning, you m…

I have been very quiet on the review front recently and for that I must apologise, especially to the authors and publishers who were kind enough to send me books to review and most especially to Daniela Sacerdoti and Janne at Black & White Publishing who sent me Dreams (Book 1 of the Sarah Midnight Trilogy) ages ago and which I have taken forever to get around to reviewing. I don't know why I have been so lax recently as my house is certainly not tidy and my own novel is certainly not finished. So what have I been doing with my time? Well apart from discovering the addictive time waster that is Twitter, I have been reading. I have received quite a few books to review recently as well as buying far too many and borrowing a few from the library. Yes surprise! even though I already have tonnes of books to read I still love my library. Also I visited two second hand bookshops recently and I can never leave one empty-handed. So the piles of books that I have recently acquired are …

Ghosts are big news in fiction for teens and tweens at the moment. The ghostly trend has firmly taken over from the vampire craze and seems to be almost as popular as the wave of dystopian fiction currently riding high in the wake of the hugely popular Hunger Games. I am always glad to see ghost stories back in fashion though as I am a huge fan and I envision a surge of interest amongst publishers, booksellers and readers after Celine Kiernan’s triumph at the CBI awards this year winning the book of the year and the children’s choice for Into the Grey on of my favourite books of this year.
There are a number of different kinds of ghost stories available depending on your tastes. If you want to be utterly chilled then Into the Grey, Long Lankin by Lindsay Barraclough and Unrest by Michelle Harrison are for you.

For younger readers though there are some great stories which use ghosts as a narrative device to explore history, examples of this include Spirit of the Titanic by Nicola Pierc…

Rumours is a delightful new novel by bestselling author Freya North. Set in and around the quaint English village of Long Dansbury and Longbridge Hall the seat of the Earls of Barbary. The novel is peopled with a wonderful array of characters young and old. I have read five of Freya’s previous novels and her latest does not disappoint. Stella is an art historian who has reinvented herself as an estate agent tasked with the sale of Longbridge Hall. Lydia is the Lady of the Manor growing old as the Hall crumbles around her. Xander is a lifelong resident of the village who grew up around the Hall. All are tied to the future of Longbridge and the village and as rumour spreads about what will happen and who the new owners will be so the cast of characters are brought together. As always in a Freya North novel there are a number of unashamedly raunchy scenes, these she writes with style and panache, helping to bring alive the character growth and the growing relationship between the two roma…