Category: Review

Urban fantasy review: ‘Murdered Gods’ by Marina Finlayson

Marina Finlayson is one of my all-time favourite authors. Her stories just seem to resonate with me, and I’ve enjoyed every single thing she’s written. Which makes it more than a little nerve-wracking whenever I pick up a new book – will this be the one that falls flat on its face? Well, no is the answer, not by a long shot. In the previous book, Lexi got into a whole heap of trouble over a stolen ring with magical powers, although with a hot fireshaper around, there were some compensations, too. But the ring’s doing some odd things, and Lexi’s own ability is unusual too. Controlling animals seems pretty tame when you’re surrounded by shifters in a world ruled by powerful shapers, but where did that ability come from? Lexi decides to go back home to the human territories to ask the one person who knows – her mum. […]

Posted March 4, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Mystery review: ‘A Case of Murder in Mayfair’ by Clara Benson

This is the second in the spin-off series from the author’s Angela Marchmont series or murder mysteries set in the twenties. This time, Freddy Pilkington-Soames, insouciant man-about-town, finds himself in the middle of a drugs-and-murder case amongst a set of film people. A famous Hollywood actress somehow falls from a high balcony during a party announcing her landing a plum part. She wasn’t the nicest person in the world, so no shortage of suspects with a grudge against her, including another actress, a cameraman, a producer, the actress’s sister and so on. Freddy joins forces with another journalist, the less than scrupulous Corky Beckwith, to investigate. This series has one advantage over its predecessor – Freddy is able to take a far more active part in events than the ladylike Angela. So there’s a great deal of creeping about at night, sneaking into suspects’ houses and getting into fights. Freddy’s […]

Posted January 23, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Review: ‘The Warden’ by Anthony Trollope

I’ve never read any Trollope before, but my book group likes to mix things up, so here we are. This was a real surprise to me. It was published in 1855 and my previous dabblings in that era have left me less than enthusiastic. Overly wordy, sentimental, turgid and a real slog to get through – that was what I expected. What I got was funny, sharply observed, sympathetic and surprising easy to read. I have to say, though, that I’ve never read a book with so many words where so little actually happens. Much of the body of the text is made up of lovely commentary on the characters, their histories, quirks and motivations, together with the author’s opinions on the church, the newspaper industry and the legal profession. Some of that is interesting, but some is also very repetitive and long-winded, and could have been scrapped without any […]

Posted January 16, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Five self-published gems of 2013

Edit: This is my original post, reposted here because it got lost in a cyber-black-hole. Self-publishing gets a bad rap. Some wit once said: the best thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it; and the worst thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it. Occasionally, trawling through the endless heaps of optimistic offerings on Amazon, it seems as if half the world’s population sat down at the computer, rattled off that novel they’ve always wanted to write, and without a single further thought clicked the ‘Publish’ button. Bad spelling, bad grammar, no punctuation at all, wooden characters, trite plots… But there are authors out there who write as well as any of the big names, and better than many of them. They take the time to edit thoroughly, they add professional cover art, they take endless trouble with formatting. Their work is indistinguishable in quality from anything […]

Posted January 15, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Ramblings, Review / 0 Comments

Pauline’s self-published gems of 2014

Edit: Reposting this which got lost in a cyber-black-hole. I read a lot of self-published books – about half my reading, both this year and last. I don’t specifically choose that, I follow my nose where books are concerned. If I like the look of a book, from reading the first few pages, I’ll give it a go. It doesn’t always work out, but I’ll try anything that’s well written and isn’t just a zombie-fest. I’ve found I’m just as likely to be happy with a self-published book as with a traditionally published one, although I confess I’m very selective. If there’s the merest hint of a grammatical error in the first chapter, that’s a no go. But there are some areas where the self-published books outshine the traditionally published ones. Here are a few ways: 1) The ebooks are usually cheaper. Self-pubbing authors have far more control over pricing, […]

Posted January 15, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Archive, Ramblings, Review / 0 Comments

Fantasy review: ‘The Ruling Mask’ by Neil McGarry and Daniel Ravipinto

One of the best aspects of epic fantasy, for me, is the way each book in a series opens out the scope of the story a little more, allowing glimpses of previously unseen locations. This book does that, too, and even though almost all the action takes place within the confines of the city of Rodaas, there is much to discover about the place. But what this series does so gloriously well is to draw back the veil concealing the mysteries of the people of Rodaas – its odd history, its religions, its swirling rivalries on the streets and the background of Duchess herself. And in this book, for the first time, we begin to get a good close-up look at the rulers of the city. This is a plot-heavy book, with multiple threads weaving back and forth, involving the many different political and economic factions of the city. Many […]

Posted December 27, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Mystery review: ‘Angela’s Christmas Adventure’ by Clara Benson

A short and sweet Christmas story for fans of the Angela Marchmont series of murder mysteries set in the 1920s. There’s snow and presents and some missing jewellery, stolen in a seemingly impossible crime, which Angela and the irrepressible Barbara set out to solve in their own inventive but persistent way. There are walk-on parts for Angela’s maid and chauffeur, and of course, the delicious Edgar Valencourt. If the mystery isn’t terribly plausible, it doesn’t matter in the slightest, because it’s all jolly good fun. Four stars.

Posted December 23, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Review: ‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Toibin

An interesting story historically, perhaps, but in many ways it fell short for me. Eilis is a young woman in a small town in post-war Ireland, a place with few prospects. Her brothers have gone to England to find work, and her glamorous older sister, Rose, has a job and a social life and a worldly wisdom Eilis is entirely lacking. So when Rose arranges for Eilis to go to New York, with a job and accommodation organised by a helpful priest, Eilis meekly goes along with it. It’s never very clear to me exactly why Rose does this, especially given the later revelations of the story, but then there wouldn’t be much plot if she hadn’t, so I’ll go along with it. The section dealing with Eilis’s journey to America and settling into life in Brooklyn is quite interesting, but it’s curiously flat. We never get any real inkling […]

Posted December 17, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Mystery review: ‘Web Of Fear’ by Mike Omer

The third outing with Omer’s gloriously quirky cops in the Glenmore Park Police Department. This time the spotlight is firmly on Hannah, who’s a bit of a mess in lots of ways, but grimly determined to prove her worth to the department. Naturally, almost everything that can go wrong does. Poor Hannah! This story was a bit different, since it focused on a child kidnapping case. That’s always going to be harrowing, and occasionally the author’s sense of humour jarred with the grimness of a child in captivity. I’d find myself laughing at one of those wildly funny scenes the author does so well, and then the switch to Abigail in her cellar would have me feeling guilty for finding anything funny. And therein lies the skill of the writer, to invoke that very visceral response in a reader. If I have a complaint at all about this series, it’s […]

Posted November 25, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Fantasy review: ‘Assassin’s Charge’ by Claire Frank

It’s a novelty these days to find an assassin character who visibly fulfils that role, both in practice and in temperament. Rhisia Sen is a paid killer for the Attalon Empire, so well-paid for her work that she can almost afford to retire. But when she’s offered an outrageous amount of money for a kill, she can’t resist just one more job. But if something seems too good to be true, it usually is, and this is the job where Rhis finds out just how far she will go to fulfil a contract, and where she’ll draw the line. This book drew me in right from the first chapter, where we see Rhis on a mission, and realise how skilled she is, and how cold-blooded an assassin needs to be. But her next job is a little different, and when she finds out that she has to kill a child, […]

Posted November 14, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments