May 2026 book blog

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Rel

I spent a lot of time at fairs and markets in May, and read a lot during the downtime when there weren’t any customers around.

My first May book was Janny Wurts’ short story collection ‘That Way Lies Camelot’.

This was a December book, a birthday or Christmas gift.

I’m familiar with Janny Wurts’ name, and have perhaps read a story or two before. This collection is an interesting one. There are two distinct sets of stories, plus several unrelated ones. One of the sets is a military sf set of stories about a Fleet officer and the pirate who plagues him. The other is very different, and is about a young elf, her wolf, and her home and family. I’m left wondering if the stories are parts of two novels that were never written, or if they’re excerpts from existing books. It’ll be easy to find out. The standalone stories are fantasy themed, and I enjoyed them a lot.

From a short story collection to another looong book. King Sorrow by Joe Hill.

877 pages and done, and now I want a sequel.

Not that it wasn’t all wrapped up nicely, you know, more that I’m sorry to let it go. I’ve been reading this book for a week, and have managed to get myself very involved with the characters, including the Big Bad, dragon King Sorrow himself.

Hill is a master at stirring up empathy for dislikeable characters, even the billionaire tech bro with a penchant for giving his companies Tolkienesque names. (Ahem)

Anyway, pointed jibes at princes of the universe aside, this is a wonderful book. Yes, it’s long, but it’s worth it.

Many thanks to Lancashire Libraries for the loan of this book.

My next read was John Scalzi’s ‘Lock In’. Another library book – many thanks to Lancashire Libraries.

A coincidence – Joe Hill was mentioned at the front of the book. Joe Hill is the author of the book I read before this one.

A sf murder mystery cop novel. Not my usual brand of sf, but Scalzi writes fun, enjoyable books and being Scalzi curious at the moment, I managed to borrow this book from my local library.

There are several elements to this book. First, how does the world humanely deal with a post epidemic crisis of millions of humans locked into their own bodies, conscious and aware, but unable to move or speak? ‘Lock In’ gives us cause for optimism, the world and the scientific community has come together to provide funding for neural nets for the locked in, to allow them to operate humanoid ‘personal transports’ in the human world, and / or to develop a society of their own in the digital ‘Agora’. Note, this novel was written before the Covid 19 pandemic, and perhaps errs a little on the hopeful side for the long term victims of a pandemic. A smaller subset of survivors have the ability to ‘host’ other brain patterns within their own brains, allowing the locked in to experience the human condition. Inevitably, this is limited by the number of people willing to be ridden in this way, and the wealth and influence of the locked in person.

Second, there are political and financial elements at work, which have to be unravelled and investigated by our newly formed detective team when they’re confronted with an unusual murder scene on the rookie’s first day.

I enjoyed the background more than the murder plot, but it was still a riveting read, especially looking at the parallels between the politics of the emerging locked in society, and the existing struggles of the Deaf community.

Next, ‘Cujo’ by Stephen King.

Another library book, since this is one of the few King books that I don’t own. Many thanks to Lancashire Libraries.

I have read this book before, but I suspect only once. Along with Pet Sematery, it’s one of the most disturbing King books that I’ve read, and I’ve avoided it since for that reason. I was probably in my teens when I read it, and I’ve come back to it nearly four and a half decades later.

My first thought was ‘This book doesn’t have chapters.’ It makes it harder to put the book down, of course, but that’s not the only reason. I was gripped by the horrid inevitability of it all. Mistakes are made, the wrong choices are made, but nothing seems to be life changing until suddenly, it is.

My next book was book 2 of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. ‘Carl’s Doomsday Scenario’ was fun read that felt thinner somehow than #1. The plot thickens, but not by much, and the fun of worldbuilding obviously got used up in the first book.

Another library book – many thanks to Lancashire Libraries.

And so to ‘Lessons In Magic and Disaster’ by Charlie Jane Anders.

I am besotted with this book, and so envious of Anders’ talent and intelligence, and her ability to do so much research and come up with something so utterly brilliant.

It’s a book about ‘The Cry’, which is basically what happens when sad grumpy boring people decide that they’ve got nothing better to do that destroy the lives of anyone who dares to live outside the lines.

Our protagonist, Jamie, is an academic working on her dissertation on 18th Century English Literature. She’s obsessed with a novel about a young woman whose reputation is at stake. Jamie becomes fascinated by the real life story of the author and her friends, and the other books that they wrote. At the same time, Jamie is trying to use magic to restore her mother’s vim and vigor, which have been dulled since she was widowed.

It’s a scary book in places, reminding us all of how easy it has become for ‘The Cry’ to be turned on anyone, without any need for truth or evidence.

I absolutely loved this book. Jamie and Ro have become one of my favourite fictional relationships.

I recommend it to the moon and back. And yes, this was another library book from Lancashire Libraries.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. ‘The Dead Zone’ by Stephen King

Thank you to Lancashire Libraries for the loan of this book. For some reason I no longer have a copy.

It’s a long time since I read ‘The Dead Zone’, but I watched the film relatively recently and as I read the book, it all started to come back to me.

John Smith has been in a terrible accident and spent almost five years in a coma. On awakening, he finds that a weird talent born of a childhood brain injury has resurfaced, stronger than ever. Smith has psychic abilities and has visions about a person’s past and future, if he touches them or a personal item of theirs.

He struggles with his mother’s growing radicalisation as an evangelical Christian, and the legions of scam artists taking her money. He has to deal with the marriage of the girl he’s in love with. He has to cope with a barrage of badly spelled hate mail from the unlettered American masses, unleashed by a vicious press campaign. And he wonders what can be done about Greg Stillson, the right wing populist and rabidly crazy politician who has an eye on the presidency and a flaming apocalypse in his future.

This fifty year old novel hasn’t aged a bit.

Next, ‘Winters’ Farm’ by Angela Hartley.

Not my genre, but an indie read is an indie read and I’ve been meaning to dip into Angela’s work for a while. She’s a fellow Lancashire writer and we see each other at events quite often.

Winter’s Farm is Angela’s latest novel. It’s a contemporary fiction with a fairly large cast of characters.

Our protagonist, Emma, is a struggling Uni drop out with a toddler daughter, a firefighter boyfriend, a dull job and a very tight budget. Her life is about to change in a big way.

I enjoyed the growing relationship between Emma and her older sister, and the focus on female relationships.

I loved Rosie Radcliffe’s previous book, ‘Frankie and Dot’, and was ready for more of the same with ‘Sitting Tenant’. I’d imagined a house share situation … but I had not imagined THIS particular house share situation.

Our protagonist faces more than her fair share of problems at the beginning of the book, she has been released from a mental health hospital to a life in a bare flat, her job prospects are poor, and she’s estranged from her mother. Then a letter arrives inviting her to Lytham to view a house that an previously unknown aunt has left her. And then the fun begins.

Radcliffe’s love for Lytham shines through, she should get a Tourist Board award for this book. I’m fond of the place anyway, and found myself itching to make a quick visit and enjoy a cafe lunch before walking along the prom.

This is the second book in a row that I’ve read where a youngish woman inherits a property from a previously unheard of relative, then proceeds to find out more of their own history than they ever suspected. As contemporary fiction isn’t my usual genre, I’m left wondering if this is a common trope or if my two in a row is just a coincidence.

Anyway, I loved this book. Recommended.

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April 2026 book blog

Posted on May 1, 2026 by Rel

Reading the whole of Maas’s Crescent City in March didn’t put me off the big books, and I dived straight into a re-read of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’

It’s been eleven and a half years since I last re-read this book, which seems incredible, given how much I’ve loved it from the start. But time passes quickly, and I am wondering if there’ll be another re-read, not because I don’t love this book, but because so much time passed without me noticing it fly by. I have noticed that I’m drawn to different scenes now. My favourite bit used to be Fran on the pier with Jesse, so conscious of how he looked and how she felt. Now … it’s Stu and Tom and Kojak making their epic trip. Yeah, I still love this book.

In a complete change of direction, I went for Jules Oliver Wilkinson’s ‘A Touch of the Whimsy’.

There is more than a touch of the whimsy to this book. It’s probably the most whimsical book I’ve ever read, including Scalzi’s ‘When the moon hits your eye’.

So, there’s these conditionally immortal chaps who are observing humanity. They’re called Dave and John. There’s CeCe, an amazingly unselfconscious Yorkshirewoman who gets washed overboard from her cruise ship and deposited on a tropical island. Then there’s Eric / Heracles, created by Dave from ‘spare’ cosmic matter and instructed to interact with CeCe. A supporting cast of various baffled sea creatures carries the story onwards quite happily, and very whimsically. I enjoyed this.

The Stephen King re-read binge continues with ‘Christine’.

This is the fifth novel in my King re-read binge. Unlike Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining and The Stand; Christine was not a book that I re-read often. Having said that, I enjoyed it this time round. The ending feels a bit fumbled, but everything does get tied up more or less satisfactorily.

There are points in common with other King works. ‘Christine’ is a book that could easily have been born from short stories ‘The Mangler’ and ‘Sometimes They Come Back’; whilst the ending reminds me of a later short story, ‘The Road Virus Heads North’. There are parallels, too, with The Stand. Arnie and Harold have a similar story arc, but somehow the tragedy of it hits harder with Arnie, perhaps because he’s not living in a post apocalyptic world, because he could so easily have had it all.

The female characters, even Leigh, the love interest, are barely more than sketches, when they could have been so much more. We know that King can do better, which makes it all the more disappointing.

All that aside, the story is a good one, and the horror of it all is well conveyed until right at the end. No spoilers, but I just couldn’t help but find it amusing.

Next book. ‘The List of Suspicious Things’ by Jennie Godfrey. This was a gift, and I can understand why the giver thought I’d enjoy it. It’s set in Yorkshire in the 1970s, when Peter Sutcliffe was getting away with murdering thirteen women. It’s told from the point of view of a girl growing up in that area, and seeing the impact it had on women and girls … and their menfolk. I grew up in Lancashire, in a working class home, I’m only six or seven years older than the author, and was well aware of the crimes, and that the killer had struck in Manchester, not far from where I lived. Walking home alone wasn’t something that was undertaken lightly back then.

So, yes, I should have identified with the book. It carefully and respectfully covers issues of rape, racial abuse, mental illness and bereavement, with a touch that is neither too light nor too heavy.

I finished it, and I liked the characters, but … and this is no fault of the author’s … it’s just not my genre. I’ve passed it on my mother, and she loves it.

My last book of May was my third Stephen King book of the month.

Another re-read, it’s been way too long. ‘The Bachman Books’

Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man

This is definitely a book that changes every time I read it.

‘Rage’, infamously, is the novella that King has requested not to be reprinted or republished, following a string of USA high school shootings that seem to echo the fictional one in the book. The story is very much that of a teenage boy with issues, and is told from that point of view. The murders and serious assaults of teachers are glossed over, as if they’re not really people so far as the protogonist can see, just opponents and targets over which he needs to prove his superiority. It was written by King when he wasn’t much older than the protagonist. Weirdly, the second teacher to be shot is named J D Vance.

‘The Long Walk’ is a heartbreaker of a story. It’s recently been filmed, that much I know, but I’ve not seen the film. It’s a dystopian tale in the same vein as the later ‘The Running Man’. A hundred boys and young men walk for days for the ultimate prize. It’s a perfect story, and always hits hard.

‘Roadwork’ sees King try out a slightly older protagonist. Our hero is forty, married, no kids. He’s not in a good place, his only child has recently died, and the city has plans to put a new road through his neighbourhood, demolishing his workplace and his home. His comfortable life is falling apart and he’s running on autopilot.

‘The Running Man’ is another story, set in a future 2025 and a dystopian USA with a massive social divide between the haves and have nots. The have nots are invited to compete on some very nasty game shows on ‘The Network’ where they put their health and life on the line for the chance to make a bit more money. The top show is ‘The Running Man’, where the competitor has to hide and survive for thirty days. Nobody has ever won.

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March 2026 book blog

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Rel

I kicked off the month with ‘Night Shift’ another King re-read, and his first short story collection. A re-read. How many times now? I have no idea. I remember buying this copy at Blackwell’s book shop in Liverpool, near the Uni. I was always very careful with money, unless I saw a Stephen King book, or a Womens Press SF book in News from Nowhere. Anyway, this has been on the shelves for over forty years, but it’s a long time since I re-read it.

The outright misogyny of many of the stories hits me now, although to be fair the misogynistic men are always portrayed unsympathetically. The n word is used a time or two as well, which seems more shocking now, but, as with the misogyny, is being used to convey the character of the speaker.

We kick off with an introduction by John D MacDonald and a longer foreword by King himself. And then we hit the meat of it, the short stories.

‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ is set many years before ‘Salem’s Lot’ and is an interesting story that reaches across to the Cthulu mythos of Lovecraft’s New England coast and foreshadows ‘IT’ whilst setting the stage for ‘Salem’s Lot’.

‘Graveyard Shift’ is a straight out horror story about mutated ravenous rats, written and published several years before Herbert’s ‘The Rats’ took the horror world by storm.

‘Night Surf’ is set in the world of Captain Trips, a side journey from ‘The Stand’. I can’t remember if it makes it into the expanded version of the novel, but I’ll be finding out soon, because that’s my next King re-read. This story concerns a group of young people who have survived the superflu and are partying hard.

‘I am the Doorway’ is a very creepy sf horror about a retired astronaut and the burden he came home with.

‘The Mangler’ is a darkly funny story about a haunted laundry press and the misadventures of a couple of men who decide to exorcise it. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

‘The Boogeyman’ is probably one of King’s most chilling stories. An ineffectual blusterer goes to therapy to talk out his fears following the death of all three of his young children. He has something to confess …

‘Grey Matter’ is a straight out horror story that’ll put you off your beer.

‘Battleground’ is an excellent little story about a hitman who finds out that they don’t always know who is going to hit back. I will always love this story.

‘Trucks’ was made into a not much feted film, but I never saw it, so can still enjoy this story about a world where our creations turn on us without mercy.

‘Sometimes They Come Back’ is a tale of malign ghosts, a victim who fights back, and the inadvisability of dealing with demons.

‘Strawberry Spring’ somehow got into my vocabulary via this story, I’ve been using the phrase since the eighties, and wondering now and again where it came from. For some reason I always thought this story was called Springheel Jack, after the myth it’s based on. This is a nasty little tale, beautifully told.

‘The Ledge’ was filmed as part of the King anthology ‘Cat’s Eye’ and works as a non-supernatural story with a good helping of fear and a look into the depths that people can sink to.

‘The Lawnmower Man’ is a gloriously barmy story about a meeting between an old religion and a business opportunity.

‘Quitters Inc’ is a companion piece to ‘The Ledge’, in that it’s a non-supernatural horror story. It too was featured in ‘Cat’s Eye’ and looks at a novel and interesting way for a crime syndicate to make money and pursue the aims of their late leader.

‘I Know What You Need’ is a truly creepy story about a pretty girl and the boy who wants her. The roommate is a real hero in this story.

‘Children of the Corn’ is one of those stories that had to be written, and had to be written by King. A squabbling couple have a gruesome encounter whilst driving through the back roads of Nebraska. Things only get worse from that point. Don’t bother with the film.

‘The Last Rung on the Ladder’ is worth the price of the book all by itself. The visuals are amazing and the story is a heartbreaker. King does childhood well, and nostalgia for childhood even better.

‘The Man Who Loved Flowers’ is a creepy little story with a dirty secret. It’s beautifully told though.

‘One for the Road’ takes us back to Salem’s Lot, after the fire. It’s a great story and one to remember.

The collection ends with ‘The Woman in the Room’. Again, a non-supernatural tale, this time of the mundane horror of love and death.

My next book was John Scalzi’s ‘When The Moon Hits Your Eye’ which I borrowed from the library – many thanks to Lancashire Libraries.

I gave it five stars on Goodreads, but this could easily have been four stars, and then, damnit, Day 23 …

OK, this is essentially a silly book that has a huge big streak of humanity and humour running all the way through it. The moon has turned into cheese. The type is never specified, but it is basically one variety throughout. Obviously a moons weight of cheese isn’t going to be stable, and that lack of stability spells trouble – M O O N. (Sorry, I’m on the leadup to a reread of The Stand and I’m getting a bit overexcited about it.)

I enjoyed it. Thank you JS, but don’t ever, ever do a Day 23 on me again. My writers’ heart can’t take it.

Next, again with thanks to Lancashire Libraries, I got stuck into the Crescent City trilogy by Sarah J Maas. It had to be done.

House of Earth and Blood. Eight hundred pages. Yes, it could have been a lot shorter, but it wasn’t and I still enjoyed it.

This is science fiction. It’s a story of how a long ago alien invasion of Earth, or a very Earth like place, via portals from other planets, or maybe other dimensions, has led to an early 21st century youth culture vibe with mobile phones, large screen TVs, rock bands, drug dealers and nightclubs mixed with a traditional fantasy setting. The aliens are Fae, vampyr, angels, sprites, demons and all kind of different sentient creatures, and interestingly, many of them can interbreed with each other and humans. There’s quite a lot of that going on.

It’s a story of two beautiful, smart, damaged people and their fight against an unfair world.

It’s a story of love, and friendship, and family.

There’s a bit of deus ex machina at the end, but it’s been signalled enough, so I’m not complaining.

And it made me cry twice. I’ve not cried at a book in ages and ages and ages, and I’m not gonna spoiler it. But if it made you cry too, I’d be interested to know which scenes got you going.

And so to Maas’ ‘House of Sky and Breath’. Well, that felt like an eight hundred page book. I found myself reading it in fifty page segments, and it was slow through the middle segment. The secondary characters were engaging and fun, and I developed a real fondness for some of them, but Bryce got more insufferable with every new power up. I lost 10% of sympathy for her with every smirk, so it didn’t take long before I was longing for her to just explode already. Hunt … hell he’s dull in this book isn’t he? He could be an AI boyfriend considering his lack of personality outside being Bryce’s boyfriend.

But … it’s the middle book of three, and they’re always hard to write because there is so much plot and signalling and character development to squeeze in before book 3. So I’m willing to be patient.

In book 1, everything speeded up and got interesting in the last third of the book. In book 2, Maas waits until the last eighth of the book. And it got interesting, and ended on a real cliffhanger. I loved the ending.

I took a short break from Crescent City to read Belinda Bauer’s latest novel, ‘The Impossible Thing.’

A library book, and as an added bonus I’m the first reader, which is nice …

This is my third Bauer book, after Exit and Blacklands. This is very much more in the style of Exit, an easy read cosy crimeish book with some genuinely heartfelt moments. That poor bird.

So, we have four stories that cross over, starting just after WWI and ending in the present day. The plot revolves around a true thing, a collection of bright red guillemot eggs. The characters are fictional or loosely based on historical figures. The first story is about Celie, who is a small child when she steals her first egg and recognises its worth. Her partnership with the farm boy Robert is touching and real. The second story is about the egg broker who buys it from her, and enters into a contract with the family. We take a look at the egg collectors that he sells to, and the society that allows the trade. The third story concerns two young men who accidentally get involved with the drama and lies around the eggs. The fourth concerns a modern day egg thief, an utterly charming couple of egg guardians, a militant RSPB officer, and an obsessive curator of the national egg collection. Bauer draws the stories together with an expert hand.

And after all is finished, and the tale is done, I’m left with the image of a poor guillemot, resigned to the loss of every egg she ever laid. It’s a dirty trade, and a nasty crime.

And then, to finish off the month, Part 3 of Crescent City. ‘House of Flame and Shadow’ is a fun, fast paced and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. If you find yourself getting bogged down in book 2, I promise you it’s worth it and that Maas won’t let you down.

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February 2026 book blog

Posted on March 24, 2026 by Rel

I’m on a reading binge right now, and I’m absolutely loving it.

So, February kicked off with a re-read of The Shining the third book of my King re-read. I did spend a fair bit of time expecting scenes from Kubrick’s film, it’s been such a long time since I read the book …
So, this is a brilliant horror story, with beautifully written characters.
Jack Torrance isn’t, wasn’t and never will be the heroic main character that he thinks he is, and sadly, the hotel knows this. I love the way that King writes Jack, as a man struggling to overcome his history and his faults.

And so to A Court of Thorns and Roses. This series has been everywhere recently. I write speculative romance books, and have been asked SO MANY TIMES what I think about ACOTAR, if I’ve been influenced by it, if I enjoy it. It got to the point where I was actively curious about it. When I was offered a free set that had had two careful owners, I said yes, and waited patiently until owner 2 had finished the full series. Because I read fast.

So, it took me two days to read book 1, because this is a very easy read and although it is slow paced at first, there’s enough to it to keep me reading. It’s well written, and is entertaining and amusing in places. Our main character is a bit bratty, but she’s nineteen, so she’s allowed to be.

There’s nothing in the series that is ground breaking or new to the seasoned reader of fantasy, but there doesn’t need to be, the story is fun, nicely constructed, and hits all the right beats at the right time. It would have been nice to see some darker skinned or queer main characters, but maybe Maas is saving that for later in the series.

If you’re looking for an easy read fantasy series with a slight edge, this fits the bill.

I moved straight on to book 2, A Court of Mist and Fury. Eager to move on, I wrote a very short review … I’m enjoying this. It’s fun, it’s heating up, and I’m ready for book 3.

A Court of Wings and Ruin is book 3 of the series. I had this to say. ‘A satisfying mid series fantasy novel, with good character and plot development and a nice line in tying off some loose ends before the last couple of novels. It’s an easy, enjoyable read. On to book 4 …’

A Court of Frost and Starlight is technically book 3.5, but is generally viewed as book 4.

Maas knows what she’s doing. ACOFAS takes a step back from the frenzied action of the last three books to concentrate on the main characters, giving us a welcome invitation to watch Feyre’s found family in more intimate surroundings. Whilst the romance and danger are still present, there’s time for a slower look at evolving relationships and eddies in the political landscape.

And so to the last – so far – of the ACOTAR series. A Court of Silver Flames. It was bare days after finishing this that Maas announced two more books in the series. That’s definitely something to look forward to.

This book was handed to me with the words ‘It’s a bit raunchy’. Never were truer words uttered, but it’s OK, because it’s two characters who I’ve been desperately wanting to get raunchy. And they did. Many times.

But it’s not just about the smut / spice / naughtiness, there’s a lot more to this book than that. It’s a very good fantasy book, it doesn’t neglect the politics, the relationships, the worldbuilding, or the battle scenes. The story is deep enough to make the end of the series (so far) to leave a real ache in my heart. It’s been less than three weeks since I picked up ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ with, admittedly, some scepticism; but I’m happy to shout loud and clear that SJM is a bloody good fantasy author.

I’m sure she knows the story we’re all waiting for …

And then I had a bit of change of pace, and started the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Yeah, I’m reading the most hyped genre books of the decade, why not? At some point I’ll get round to that Andy Weir book too.

I liked this book enough to ask the library to find the next one for me, but not enough to buy the next one. I do want to know what happens next, but mostly because of the goblins in the short story at the end.

‘Carl’ means ‘free man’, but this Carl is anything but free. Trapped in a series of dungeon levels and forced to fight for his life against ‘monsters’ and the machinations of the game, he grows to rely greatly upon Princess Donut, his ex’s Persian show cat. Meanwhile, trillions of sentient lifeforms tune in to the latest season of their favourite reality show.

Dinniman has cracked open a fun formula for a series here – the game has eighteen levels, and in this first book, his protagonists tackle the first two of them.

So, then I went for a bit of Bob Mortimer, with ‘The Satsuma Complex’, A bit of light reading. I love Bob in small doses, and so I should have read this book in smaller doses rather than over a couple of days. My husband had borrowed it from his brother, and was due to take it back, so I grabbed the chance while I could.

A mild thriller with Bob’s characteristic humour shining through.

My last full read of February was ‘The Long Shoe’, another Bob Mortimer book. I’d bought it as a Christmas gift for my husband, and this particular copy was due to cross the Pennines to be lent to his brother, so again I took the chance to read it before starting something else.

A definite improvement on The Satsuma Complex.

I bought this as a Christmas pressie for my husband, and he enjoyed it, describing it as ‘a light read’. Both of us love Bob Mortimer, so it’s a hit.

It’s a cosyish crime thriller, and at one point I was a little concerned for the cat. There was an actual laugh out loud moment too, which was very welcome.

Basically, it’s about a hapless bloke whose capable partner goes missing. Without her, he’s prey to the sexy neighbour and a local property developer with criminal leanings. He muddles through by being amiable and harmless and at some point fails to buy a long shoe. I enjoyed it.

So there we go, nine books in one month. No wonder I still haven’t got to the bottom of the ironing pile!

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January 2026 book blog

Posted on February 14, 2026 by Rel

Starting the new year with a novel about Shakespeare by an indie writer kinda strikes me as good and right.

There are rumours that William Shakespeare spent some time at Hoghton Tower in Lancashire during his teenage years. Pete Hartley wrote a play, based on this assumption, that was performed at the Tower some years ago. Hartley has expanded the play into a novel, and a very enjoyable one at that.

Last year many of my books were re-reads, and I enjoyed them so much that I’ve decided to revisit Stephen King, it’s been a long time since I’ve read some of them.

Carrie isn’t so much a book as an integral part of my history. I’ve read it many times, but I confess it’s been a while. I’ve probably watched the film more than I’ve read the book over the last twenty years or so, so it was interesting to note the differences between the two, and to revisit the academic tones of King’s first ragingly successful novel.

I remember reading this book for the first time in ’76 or ’77, younger than the girls in the book, but not by much. I was a quiet girl in secondary school, I kinda identified with Carrie. Of course, I didn’t have the rabidly religious mum, but I knew what it was like to keep my head down.

This re-read I realised that Carrietta White is the same age as me, King was setting the novel in his future when he wrote it. Carrie was born in September 1963, three months before me. Knowing this added a new layer of sympathy for Carrie and for Sue, the other main character in the book.

So, from the personal to the review. This is a story told from multiple points of view and also with several different tones. We get close up points of view from both Carrie and Sue, but we also get distant third person journalistic and scientific viewpoints. It’s an interesting way to tell a story, and one that King uses again and again in later works.

Another re-read, if only to give myself permission to donate the book to the charity shop, because my oh my, my shelves are GROANING. I took another run at Vinland the Dream and Other Stories by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I like KSR, loved the Mars Trilogy and intend to re-read it one day, and have fairly recently read or re-read a couple of his other novels. And yet I struggled to enjoy this collection of short stories. They’re billed as ‘historical sf’ and deal largely with academic historical concepts, and also with alternate histories. A story about the evidence for the existence of ‘Vinland’ having been planted is very much a teaser for a longer tale, and I felt short changed at the end of it. The ‘Lucky Strike’ pair of stories looks at what might have happened if the Enola Gay hadn’t flown over Hiroshima, and then examines how the twentieth century might have been different. That was interesting and absorbing.
‘Stone Eggs’ is, for me, the standout story of the collection. It’s weird enough to stay with me.

And … back to King.

I’m going back to Salem’s Lot, a book that I’ve re-read a few times, but not recently.

It is very, very good. I know it’s a horror classic, I know the film was good, but seriously, the book far outshines it. This was terrifying, the slow build up, establishing characters, relationships … just brilliant. Especially the massive spoiler at the start of the book … who does that?

I think they call it a ‘palate cleanser’. ‘Notebook’, by Tom Cox.

Tom is one of the best writers around, and his books are an absolute treat. I wish I was back in my ‘financially comfortable’ phase so I could buy all his books, but I have to confess that I got this book for little more than the cost of postage and packaging, directly from the man himself, when he had a houseful of books claimed from his ex publishers. I hope I helped a little.

Tom talks a lot about crisps. He likes crisps. He bemoans the accompanying plastic waste, but oh my, he loves his crisps. I like crisps too, so my first thought on finishing this book mere hours after starting it was ‘That book was like a packet of crisps.’

Notebook is a collection of musings that have a certain rhythmic order imposed upon them, that take you from a perfectly formed two sentence thought to a two page mini-essay. It’s a giant bag of crisps where some of them are curled and huge and have enough flavouring on them to make your eyes water, some of them look like a standard crisp at first then you realise that there’s a jagged edge. Some of them are just lovely and perfect and you look at them several times before you eat them. Then there’s the bits at the bottom of the bag; the fragments that you secretly like the most.

I’m going to call ‘Brockenspectre’ by Caroline Moir, my last book of January.

Claustrophobic, frustrating, unputdownable.

OK, I did put it down because I have stuff to do, but I looked forward to picking it back up again, in a masochistic way. It’s one of those rare books that I really did not enjoy because everyone in it was annoying (I think they call it literary fiction), but I had to keep reading because … everyone in it was annoying.

There’s always a bit of a red light for me when a book is set in a creative writing department, or when the main characters are writers, but Moir understands the assignment, making the background part of the growing tension between the two main characters.

Hild is such a great character, by turns a chameleon, a blank screen, an abused woman struggling to find her space.

And on, to February

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Book signings, events and stalls in 2026

Posted on January 9, 2026 by Rel

These are my first events of 2026. Signed books are also available via my ebay page. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276570998880

Library visits

Sat 17th Jan – 11 am – Accrington Library – St James’ St, Accrington, Lancashire,BB5 1NQ

Tue 20th Jan – 2 pm – Carnforth Library – Lancaster Road, Carnforth, Lancashire, LA5 9DZ

Thu 12th Feb – 11 am – Poulton Library – Blackpool Old Road, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, FY6 7DH

Wed 18th Feb – 4 pm – Bacup Library – St James Square, Bacup, Lancashire, OL13 9AH

Thu 5th Mar – 11 am – Cleveleys Library – Rossall Road, Thornton-Cleveleys, FY5 1EE

Thu 12th Mar – 11 am – Fleetwood Library – North Albert Street, Fleetwood, GB FY7 6AJ

Thu 12th Mar – 4 pm – Coal Clough Library – Coal Clough Lane,  Burnley, Lancashire,  BB11 4NW  

Thu 19th Mar 2 pm – Clitheroe Library – Church Street, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 2DG  

Tue 28 May – 12:30 pm – Lancaster Library – Market Square, Lancaster, Lancashire, LA1 1HY – 12:30 pm

Stalls

Sun 25th Jan – 11 am – 4 pm St Helens SciFi comic and toy fair, Ruskin Sports Village, St Helens, WA10 6RP

Sun 8th Feb – 10 am – 3:30 pm – Flock 2 Artisan craft fair and farmers’ market, New Longton Village Hall, Boundary Close, New Longton, Nr Preston. PR4 4BD

Sun 22nd Feb, noon – 4 pm – ANJU craft fair, Flixton House, Flixton Rd, Urmston, M41 5GJ

Sat 28th Feb / Sun 1st March, 10 am – 4 pm – Craft Fair, Watersports Centre, Fairhaven Lake, Ansdell FY8 1BD

Sun 8th Mar – 10 am – 3:30 pm – Flock 2 Artisan craft fair and farmers’ market, New Longton Village Hall, Boundary Close, New Longton, Nr Preston. PR4 4BD

Sat 28th Mar – Stall at craft and artisan fair, Chew’s Yard, Preston

Sun 29th Mar – Stall at Chorley Comic Con, Town Hall, Chorley.

Sat 4th April / Sun 5th April, 10 am – 4 pm – Craft Fair, Watersports Centre, Fairhaven Lake, Ansdell FY8 1BD

Sat 14th Mar, 10:30 am – 4 pm, book stall at Memory Lane Fairs craft fair, Venue Cymru, The Promenade, Llandudno, LL30 1BB

Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd May – 11 am – 4 pm – Memory Lane Fairs craft fair, Lytham Assembly Rooms, Dicconson Terrace FY8 5JY

Sat 25th April, 10:30 am – 4 pm, book stall at Memory Lane Fairs craft fair, Venue Cymru, The Promenade, Llandudno, LL30 1BB

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Paraplegion by Alice Barker – a review

Posted on January 2, 2026 by Rel

I received an ARC copy of this book from the indie publisher, Big Thinking Publishing.

Paraplegion, as befits a book about people who don’t quite fit in, is a long novella, or maybe a very short novel. I enjoyed it, and it would be fine for a teenage or YA audience.

The story starts with a well used sf trope, the young soldier preparing to be the pride of the unit, interacting with their peers and their mentor. The set up could lead in several different directions, but Barker definitely knows where she’s taking her heroine, on a voyage of self discovery that sails through choppy seas and finally finds the perfect harbour.

The main protagonist is well drawn and easy to identify with, and the supporting characters are beautifully scripted for their roles in the story.

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December 2025 book blog

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Rel

December 2025 was not a month that was characterised by reading. It was more of a month that was characterised by binge watching five seasons of ‘Angel’ on the telly. I regret nothing. This isn’t a telly blog, but spending so much time with Cordelia, Harmony, Fred, Dru, Darla, Lilah, Kate and Eve, with guest appearances from Faith, Buffy and Willow, really fired up my desire to get back to writing again. Spike and Doyle were their immaculately brilliant selves, Lindsay was great eye candy, Gru was the saddest character ever … why was he never mentioned again after he walked away? (sob). As for Angel and Connor … oh the brooding dark silliness of it all. Loved it.

And, back to the books. I went to the library to look for a Scalzi book to end the year with, but they had none. I did, however, find a non-sf Cory Doctorow book. ‘Picks and Shovels’ I enjoyed this, it’s a fast paced story set in the early days of Silicon Valley, exploring the thrill of the start up community, the growing confidence of the gay community, the horror of AIDS and the sheer joy of a young man embracing the power and intelligence of a group of highly motivated women.

It’s the third book in the Marty Hench series, which I didn’t realise when I picked it up, but we all know that when you’re in the library, you get what you can. I’ll probably have to reserve the other two books. Luckily, chronologically, it’s the first book. I think I’ll definitely be reading the others.

A few weeks ago I’d borrowed Starveacre from the library, and found it to be a great short story stretched out into a short novel. Then I had several conversations with other readers who had been fairly unimpressed with both Starveacre and The Loney. Me being me, all of this pushed me to search our shelves for ‘The Loney’ and read it. I was prepared for anything.

I bought this copy for my husband years ago, he read it and wasn’t very impressed. Because Hurley is a fellow Lancastrian, and writes folk and gothic horror, I decided that I’d try it at some point, so it stayed on the shelves.

So, this is a more than decent slow burn horror novel with that great vibe that you get from a desolate setting. The Loney itself is a place, one that I’m familiar with but had never seen as desolate, more as beautiful. Still, nobody reads horror stories about beautiful places do they, and we’re all different in our responses to people, places and, of course, stories. And this story is a good one. The characters might be a bit clumsy and stereotyped, but they’re used to great effect, and the climax of the story is truly horrific, revealed partially in that matter of fact, mercenary manner that underlies the nastiest things in the world.

So yes, I enjoyed ‘The Loney’ and will definitely read more Hurley when I get the chance.

Just two December books then. Ah well, I’ve started another, and will tell you more in my January 2026 blog.

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November 2025 book blog

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Rel

I began the month with a Terry Pratchett book, because why the hell not.

The Fifth Elephant is the companion book to Carpe Jugulum. It’s the other Uberwald book, with vampires and werewolves up to no good, but instead of Granny Weatherwax, the plotters and fascists have to deal with Sam Vimes, who has been ambassadored by Veterini

Loved it. Not quite as much as I loved CJ, but loved it all the same.

My next book was a library book. I love sf / fantasy / horror. My local library has lots of crime, thrillers, romance and historical novels. So, when I spotted a folk horror book on the shelf, I grabbed it.

Andrew Michael Hurley’s ‘Starveacre’ is an interesting folk horror story, obliquely told.

I was still feeling in need of comfort, so I went back to the Pratchett shelf and grabbed ‘Monstrous Regiment’.

This was a lovely warm read with fire at the very heart of it. When Polly Perks pretends that she’s a boy and joins the army to search for her vulnerable big brother, she finds herself in the company of the very best and the very worst that the army has to offer.

In a country that has lost everything, she finds friends and allies, kicks the enemy in the goolies, and in the space of a week, she helps to change an entire nation.

Very much and always recommended.

My last book of November was the fifth book in Joan Slonczewski’s ‘Door Into Ocean’ series. ‘Minds In Transit’.

An interesting fifth book in the ‘Door into Ocean’ series that further explores two main themes. The first is personhood, and the rights of sentient beings. The second is more interesting, contrasting the right to breed and multiply against the right of the environment not to be exploited. This is a particularly interesting theme when the environment itself is a sentient person.

At times, the story moves slowly, and I admit that this book took me a while longer to finish than most, but it was a satisfying and enjoyable story.

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October 2025 book blog

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Rel

The last few months have been a bit scrambled in my head, and I didn’t always log the right dates when I read a book, but I’m pretty sure that October was the month that I re-read Dennis Etchison’s ‘Cutting Edge’ horror anthology.

Dennis Etchison introduces this book with a fervent essay about the value of horror in the literary world, specifically the world of genre fiction. He takes a swipe at several sub genres including popular fantasy. Bear in mind this was back in 1986.

The anthology is divided into four themed parts.

Part One is ‘Bringing it all back home’ and includes ‘Blue Rose’ by Peter Straub, ‘The Monster’ by Joe Haldeman’ and ‘Lacunae’ by Karl Edward Wagner.
‘Blue Rose’ is the story that ‘Koko’ is built on, and gives us a glimpse of Henry Beevers’ childhood. ‘The Monster’ allows Haldeman to take us back to the horrors of the Vietnam war, and what may have been brought back from there. ‘Lacunae’ tells a story of sexual identity and drugs.

Part Two ‘They’re Coming For You’ has seven stories. The first, ‘Pale Trembling Youth’ is a short story about youth culture, music and alienation, I enjoyed it a lot. ‘Muzak for Torso Murders’ tells the story of a serial killer and his loving mother. ‘Goodbye Dark Love’ is a very dark tale indeed. ‘Out There’ is a beautiful little story about a possessive building and its residents. I loved it. ‘Little Cruelties’ is another dark tale about family and home that really gave me the creeps. ‘The Man with the Hoe’ is not recommended for anyone who loves cats. Not my thing. ‘They’re Coming For You’ is a perfect creepy story that I’d love to have written myself.

Part Three ‘Walking the Headlights’ also has seven stories. The first ‘Vampires’ is a freeform poem by Richard Matheson. ‘Lapses’ by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is one of my favourite stories in the book, with a brilliant sense of terror and loss. William F Nolan’s ‘The Final Stone’ is one of my favourite Jack the Ripper stories, I’ve read it a few times and I always enjoy it. Nicholas Royle’s ‘Irrelativity’ is a weird urban horror story that deserves to be read two or three times. Ramsey Campbell’s ‘The Hands’ is a thoroughly creepy story about a hapless traveller who makes the wrong decision. ‘The Bell’ is a well written monkey’s paw / deal with god story with a predictable ending. I enjoyed Clive Barker’s ‘Lost Souls’, a fun story about a demon hunter.

Part Four, ‘Dying all the Time’ only has three stories. Robert Bloch’s ‘Reaper’ is a long story by the standards of this collection, and features a horror writer making a deal with Death. It’s funny and creepy and I liked it. Ed Bryant’s ‘The Transfer’ is a nicely weird story about a woman with an unusual gift, and a desire for revenge. Whitley Streiber’s ‘Pain’ ends the book with a paean to masochistic delights.

Overall, the stories feel dated now, a collection that’s almost forty years old that has a disconcerting number of male writers and far too few diverse voices. It’s becoming a part of the history of dark fiction, but it’s interesting because Etchison drew together so many of horror’s great writers of the time.

I followed this with another re-read from my shelves, a lovely old sf anthology ‘Out of This World 9’ edited by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Michael Pearson.

A re-read. A re-read after a long time, but my feeling of familiarity with the book shows that I’ve read it several times before. It was published in the early 1970s, but the ‘Barnados’ sticker on the front cover means that I bought it after 1988. See, I coulda been a detective.
It’s an ex library book – Bramhall High School Library, to be exact. It still has the index card and date stamp, which suggests it was taken out of circulation in or after 1984. It still has its plastic library cover. I love a book with history. The book consists of nine stories … two of them in translation … curated by the anthologists Amabel Williams-Ellis and Michael Pearson.
A two page preface ponders the nature of sf and the puzzling scarcity of stories that originate outside the USA and Britain.
The first story is ‘The Diamondwood Trees’ by James H Schmitz. It’s a hugely satisfying story about colonisation, what it means to be human, and the importance of respecting the local ecology.
Frank Russell’s ‘Allamagoosa’ is a straight faced study of rules v reality and what happens when they collide. I love this story, it could have been written at almost any point in the last century.
Gerard Klein’s ‘A Message for Zoo Directors’ allows sf to meet horror in this translation from the original French. It’s a tale of messages from an unusual source and the men who went in search of the truth.
‘The Vanishing Man’ by Richard Huges is a very short story describing what has become a trope of modern sf … interdimensional travel and the physical dangers thereof. It reminded me of the premise of Pratchett and Baxter’s ‘Long Earth’ series.
‘At Daybreak’ by Italo Calvino is the other translated story in the book, a gentle tale of physics, creation, and a First Family that deserves the name.
‘Rich and Strange’ is the only original story in the book, and is by the anthologist, Amabel Williams Ellis. It’s a story very much of the earlier part of the twentieth century, and concerns scientists young and old exploring an interesting theory from two very different viewpoints.
John Christopher’s ‘Blemish’ has a Twilight Zone vibe to it. Earth is heavily civilised, developed, and run on very strict principles. It has one blemish, a village that runs on older ideas. An inspection from an alien civilisation arrives to decide if Earth is fit to join the galactic culture. The Expected happens. The really sad thing about this is that what read as a dystopian Earth forty years ago now reads as something I would happily trade for the dystopia we’re living in now.
John Rackham’s ‘Catharsis’ was originally published in ‘New Writings in SF 11’. It’s a simple story of a man who is so focussed on his work that he is dying because of it. The solution, as envisaged by another highly focussed man, is drastic and very troubling.
‘Mantrap’ by Kathleen James is my favourite story in the book. Following the capture of a colonist from a rogue planet, the authorities send back a spy who has been surgically altered and trained to impersonate the colonist and to send back regular reports. Blending in becomes far too easy a task.
‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ brings in the big guns. Kurt Vonnegut’s story is an amusing and fun take on extended life and youth, and the implications for later generations. Going back to Pratchett (I wonder if he ever read this story) I’m reminded of Nanny Ogg and her constant rearranging of the family portraits in the living room.
I loved revisiting this book. At only nine stories long, it’s a nicely curated study of sf in the early seventies, reaching back in style as far as the forties but also reaching forward to the feminist sf that was beginning to make its mark.

And from a lovely anthology to a deeper dive into a thick novel. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘City of Last Chances’ I have two copies of this book. The first is a hardback, signed by the author at an event in Lancaster. It was the second time I’d met him, but the first time that I’d met him after reading … ahem … a couple of dozen of his books. I also have a paperback copy that was a gift from my husband, who hadn’t noticed that I had the hardback on my shelves. Ah well, he knows what I like.

 I love Tchaikovsky’s books, I seem to read a lot of them, but I also seem to have four or five of them lying unread on my tbr pile. Does this man ever stop to eat?

So, I read this within a year or so of enjoying China Mieville’s ‘The Iron Council’ and the parallels are fairly clear in terms of world building, although Tchaikovsky’s prose is definitely more accessible to the average reader. I enjoyed both books immensely.

I’m looking forward to reading the sequels and finding out who the Tyrant Philosophers actually are. What we have in this book is an industrialised city with a large population of downtrodden denizens including several distinct immigrant groups who have fled from difficult situations. There’s also, quite brilliantly, a haunted sector of the city that is the last resort of the desperate. Finally, for fun, there’s a copse of trees that occasionally becomes a portal to somewhere far away and strange, a portal that is guarded by monstrous creatures and a band of guardians. Next to this copse is an inn, and inside the inn, there’s a card game where the stakes are always high and the players are always looking for their next mark.

The characters are richly drawn and interesting, and I cared about them, even the silly ones who made some very bad decisions.

By the end of the month, I needed some comfort food, so I headed for the Pratchett side of town. I was a generous and community minded reader of Terry Pratchett. I gave away most of my copies after reading them because I genuinely want everybody to read them. I did keep four or five though, and for a couple of weeks I took a deep dive into three of them. My last read of October was Carpe Jugulum, which is still one of my favourite book titles of all time, as well as being my favourite Pratchett and one of my favourite books.

You know, I didn’t even write a proper review, probably because I’ve read it so often I kind of assume that I don’t need a reminder. Anyway, this is what I said.

“My favourite Pratchett, it’s got vampires and witches. It’s got Greebo too.

What would happen if a vampire bit Granny Weatherwax? Well, pretty much what you’d expect.”

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