Torc of Moonlight by Linda Acaster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The contemporary story is of students Nick Blaketon and Alice Linwood who meet as undergraduates at Hull University. Very different but drawn together. It’s what is behind the reason they’re drawn together that gives this book its amazing twist. The predatory lecturer and his past have a role to play and also a story from a whole lot further back. Linda Acaster gets inside the head of her characters in a way that not many authors manage, so that as a reader you revel in their triumphs, and are crushed by their despair. A compelling tale where the interwoven stories pick you up at the start and rush you along to the end.



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Bulldog Sheila or the Gang by T F W Hickey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a personal 5* because this book meant so much to me when I was 8 years old. Written as a children's adventure, it's something I can still read today (very occasionally, but it holds memories of childhood for me). It's the story of Sheila whose parents go away and leave her in the care of her aunt. Almost at once, sinister things start to happen. With over 200 pages it looks as though it should be a daunting read for any child but the ones I know who have read it have found it unputdownable. Bulldog refers to the fictional Bulldog Drummond idolised by heroine Sheila who wants to be as brave and resourceful as he is. I was never a huge fan of the Bulldog Drummond books myself and do not think they have travelled across the decades. I couldn't read them nowadays. The style of Bulldog Sheila or the Gang is light and easy and in many ways hasn't dated. However, it was published in 1936 and reflects the attitudes of the day in ways that can be quite disconcerting. But mainly it is a brilliant adventure story.



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West End Girls by Barbara Tate

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An incredible tale that almost didn't make it to publication. Barbara Tate tells the story of her time as a prostitute's maid in Soho. This is easy reading and it's for the story itself that I rate it. Her draft was much longer, so I'm told - more the story of Soho in those years than her own and May's story which she thought wouldn't interest anyone.

On several levels it's an amazing tale - the story itself and the insight it gives into Soho at the time and when she revisited years later; how she came to be there at all; how the book came to be blocked when she first tried for publication (that story is added at the end).

She went on to have a very successful career as an artist, coming back to her manuscript in later life. It should be a tragedy she didn't live to see the book in print, and yet it isn't. The real pity is that she didn't publish earlier and have the time to write more about her life.

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Frozen sea to frozen fountain

This is the sea below Prince’s Quay shopping centre in Hull.

This is the frozen marina taken from the roof of Prince’s Quay.

The next sequence goes closer and closer to the semi-frozen fountain in Queen’s Gardens.

Trees turned to into an ice forest

They are old enough to have seen this weather before but this close to the coast it’s unusual to have so much snow or such a hard frost.

Recognisable trees, but only a day ago, recognisable grass too. Snow smoothes it all out.

 

The pampas grass looks disgruntled but it's still standing.  The clumps at the end of the drive thwack the windscreens of any cars that pass and if anyone is careless enough to drive past with the window open, the grass arms reach inside and flap about releasing a shower of snow.  I'm yet to get a photo of that, but live in hope.

How to run a successful book party that sells out of books

Using the model of 29 November 2010 and the Doll Makers, here are three key points:

1 Avoid a day when there is a Tube strike

2 Avoid a day when the city is brought to a halt by snow

3 Avoid a venue where the lift breaks down after the invitations have gone out

All in all, it wasn’t surprising the turnout was lower than expected, but enough people made it for a good time to be had by all. The members’ area at ALCS is a great venue and worth fighting through adversity to see.

Jason from Camden Lock Books struggled in (and up) and with sales on the night and some advance sales from people who hadn’t made the party, left without any books at all which is as it should be.

Two attendees, author Jan Jones and wild life photographer Sandbyte, took photos and blogged the event. Thank you to them.

Chances are we’ll be back for the next launch around June next year. The venue is too good not to take a risk with the lift. We’ll avoid tube-strike Mondays. And if it snows heavily enough in June in central London to bring the city to a standstill, the world will be facing larger problems than disruption to a book party so we’re not worrying about that.

For short story fans of no particular genre

The anthology, a Sackful of Shorts, has no theme in the usually accepted sense. What holds it together as an anthology is the history of its group of authors. Most but not all the stories are published here for the second, third or fourth time, having originally been published or broadcast elsewhere. Many of them are prize-winners. The author bios at the end of each story provide more information about the writers and give links to their other work.

The plan was to offer this collection as a free e-book, but that would have prevented it being available in some key outlets, so it is offered at a minimal price of 99 cents. And half the book can be downloaded for free.

And now this blog becomes a bit of a cheat because author and reviewer, Stuart Aken, has written it up on his blog so I direct you to his excellent piece for more detail.

The anthology can be found, downloaded or bought on Smashwords.