Fiction

This book is every Mother's Nightmare, Alice has just spent two hours away from home leaving her husband with their new Baby Florence, just to have a wee break from the house. But when she returns she swears that the baby in the cot is not her Florence and starts a full scale attempt to find her baby.

The father swears that it is Florence but then the Grandmother returns home also and seems to back Alice and says well it could or not could be Florence she has not seen her since the day she was born.

Last Orders at Harrods by Michael Holman I thought when I first saw the book that it was about the famous store in London! When I started reading I discovered it was an African Tale about an international bar.

The way that tough street urchins and well meaning aid workers, and a corrupt dictator come to play a part in helping her to carry on with the name of Harrods on her bar. She says how dare a London Store, no matter how famous, claim exclusive use of the name of her late father Harrods Tangwenya?

This is a book written by Emma Brocks and is really about how to understand musicals in all genre. Some are overpowereing where as others are designed for all to sit down and watch.

We know of musical films that have now become stage plays - like Mary Poppins and White Christmas. But there are also much larger productions on stage such as La Bohem which many of us can not understand! We have seen casting shows for Andrew Lloyd Webber's productions for Sound of Music, Joseph and the Technicolour Dream Coat, now Oliver which I first saw as a film not a staged musical.

R D Wingfield has done it again in his latest and last book 'A Killing Frost'. As Stuart MacBride says on the jacket cover "I can't believe there won't be any more." Neither can I. To think that R D Windfield died last April and won't be writing any more Inspector Frost stories is a real loss not only to the reading public but also to the televison Frost fans all around the world. What I must say though is that he went out on an absolute high.

You know how it is, you hear the word Manga and the image that immediately springs to mind is either your dungeons and dragons type thing, or something from the cyber punk genre.I mean, if you look at the dvd titles that are available to us, you have the likes of Ninja Scrolls, Akira, Winds of Amnesia and the great Ghost in the Shell series. All great, and cover cyber punk and ancient Japan. That is what I personally think of when Manga is mentioned.

Foxbat by James Barrington is a brilliant espionage thriller, full of twists and turns. It reads very easily and has a very dry black sense of humour that pops it's head up every so often. Paul Richter is our hero who gets to do a lot of travelling as well as fly military aircraft and get's himself into a fair few predicaments!

I absolutely loved the book and highly recommend it. His next Paul Richter book 'Time Bomb' which is out this summer.

You can read James Barrington's email interview in Written Interviews.

This book is by a new writer Sean Longley and is called 'The Hartlepool Monkey'; a strange title for a book until you get into the book, and get the significance of the title. This is an amazing book set during the Napoleonic wars at the time of the French Revolution.

I have never been able to read Stephen King's books but this one I just could not put down.

The book is set in Duma Key, which is off the Florida Keys. The story is about a man who has a horrendous accident and decides to go and recuperate at Duma Keys where he starts to paint. He paints the most amazing paintings and through these he opens up a new life for himself.

E V Thompson has written this great book which has its roots in the lore and mystique of Cornwall's past. The cover of the book shows a wondeful old ship which to me reminds me of the old custom of smuggling etc.

Well the story opens up in Scotland Yard where they have been asked to supply an extra detective to support the local magistrates who wish to find the people who have been murdering the locals,which is is now getting out of hand!

This is an absolutely superb book by new writer Gyorgy Dragoman, set in Romania. It could have been totally bleak if it hadn't been for moments of tenderness from charactors you just wouldn't have expected it from.

Interestingly enough although there is a thread that follows main charactor Djata through out, each chapter can be read separately  and out  of order because each story is complete in itself.The book is written from Djata's viewpoint in a style I've not seen before, which only adds to the atmosphere.