SNAPSHOTThis is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women—and their goddesses—that will change the course of Continue Reading
Books
Book review: The Secret World of Connie Starr by Robbi Neal
The Secret World of Connie Starr releases 1 June 2022; ARC courtesy NetGalley. If you cast your mind back quite some decades, specifically the middle swathe of the twentieth century, your overwhelming impression is of impressively impervious social cohesion and conformity, bolstered by church and state in resolute lockstep and Continue Reading
Happy Easter reading kids! Time to tuck into We’re Going on an Egg Hunt, The Great Eggscape! and Mr. Impossible and the Easter Egg Hunt
Easter is all kinds of colourful, eggs-citing fun! Kids, most of all, love heading out for time with friends and family and embarking on Easter egg hunts which can be quick or slow but which are never ever dull. The theme of these three gorgeous books is how good it Continue Reading
UPCOMING READS: The “poetic ferocity” of Annalee Newitz’s The Terraformers
SNAPSHOTDestry is a top network analyst with the Environmental Rescue Team, an ancient organization devoted to preventing ecosystem collapse. On the planet Sask-E, her mission is to terraform an Earthlike world, with the help of her taciturn moose, Whistle. But then she discovers a city that isn’t supposed to exist, Continue Reading
Book review: Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
People like to think that, above all else, they know their family well. In a world where a great many other things will disappoint, horrify or surprise, we can be assured, so we tell ourselves, that we know the ins and out of family members, for better or worse, especially Continue Reading
Book review: Her Fierce Creatures by Maria Lewis
Over a series of eight immersively engaging novels, all set in the same shared paranormal universe – think Marvel but with way more werewolves, sprites and immortal beings – Maria Lewis has told the story of empowered supernatural women reshaping the world in an image which is far more just, Continue Reading
Book review: The Island Home by Libby Page
There is pain in life that starts so early, cuts so deep, and leaves such a long-lasting, festering wound that we wonder if we will truly ever get over it. Our responses to such pervasively terrible wounding vary but the truth of the matter is, facing up to the pain Continue Reading
Book review: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
One thing among the many that has always made reading reading so precious and necessary to this reviewer is its ability to warp reality in ways so escapist and pleasingly beyond belief that any troubles in the real world are temporarily kept at bay for the duration of the read. Continue Reading
Book review: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Every novel worth its narrative salt should have an emotional hook that ensnares your reader heart. But there’s something about the emotionally evocative wonder that is The Vanished Birds, the debut book by promising writer Simon Jimenez, that captures your heart (and mind and soul) far more deeply and irrevocably Continue Reading
Book review: The Maid by Nita Prose
People for the most part do not take kindly to those who do not seamlessly blend with the mainstream. They should because often these people offer, fresh, original perspectives sorely lacking from the usual way of viewing things, but alas, they don’t, too interested in enforcing the security of orthodoxy, Continue Reading