Dead Lake by Miranda Kate

‘Sometimes it pays to be Tricky’

You all know by now of my admiration for Miranda Kate. Her books always draw me right in, but with Dead Lake she has surpassed herself, creating a flirtatious & funny, clever & confident, cheeky, sexy protagonist who nonetheless has moments of simmering self-doubt. It was impossible not to fall in love with Tricky.

From Monday Feb 14th Dead Lake is on sale for 7 full days – up to and including the 20th of February – for only 99p/99c. If you’re looking for a brilliant book at a bargain price, then look no further. Give your heart (and your cash) to Tricky. Here’s my review on Amazon:

‘Sometimes it pays to be tricky

Damn and blast! That rancid piece of excrement, Carter, has had her ransacked out of Clancy!

Tricky returns to her cottage to find it turned upside down. An action that means she’s got three days to leave the district or face punishment. Randolf Carter, head of the district, is spreading lies and suspicion about her kind, making life difficult. But it wasn’t just an ordinary ransacking – they were searching for something.

Using her gifts, Tricky traces the energy left by the men and spies another creature’s energy among it: a jackdaw. Swift and wily, it’s pinched her precious gemstone, a piece of black obsidian. But at whose bidding? Communicating with birds is a rare ability and she knows all who possess it.

Tricky wants her stone back, but coming up against people like Carter won’t be easy, especially when he’s got one of her kind in his employ. But she’ll handle it, oh yes she will. She’ll just have to be careful and a little bit tricky. Good thing she is then, isn’t it?

Adept at working with energy and time as well as communicating with trees, Tricky is lured into something bigger than ownership of a gemstone, and finds out that sometimes it pays to be a little bit tricky.

Dead Lake is a dark paranormal fantasy novel set a few hundred years from now in a post-apocalyptic world. After a massive shift of the tectonic plates decimated the world and its population, life on the remaining landmass has returned to simple living, with money, rulers and religion no longer tolerated.’

I watched Brief Encounter 1974 so you don’t have to

If you’ve known me a while, you’ll know I love the Celia Johnson / Trevor Howard film ‘Brief Encounter’ from 1945. A true classic in all senses of the word, a romance of its time, a tale of physical innocence and emotional adultery. Inimitable. Or at least, that’s what I thought until yesterday, when I discovered it HAD been remade, with Richard Burton and, as that typical, plain, ordinary Forties English housewife – um, Sophia Loren. I mean WTF?

I watched it this morning, and kids, it was awful. I mean, I like Burton and I like Loren, but here they were woefully miscast, desperately under-rehearsed, and unbelievably stilted. The secondary parts (Stanley Holloway’s Albert, and Joyce Carey’s Myrtle, so beautifully drawn in the original – “Now look at me Banburies all over the floor!”) are here mere cardboard cut-outs, shouting away in the background. I think their only director’s note must have been “Wait until the main actor starts talking then just give it some welly.” John Le Mesurier is a welcome exception, bringing a little gravitas to his two minutes on screen despite appearing to be half-pissed.

The film as a whole is brash, noisy, ugly and horribly seedy – at one point Burton slobbers over Sophia’s tits; and don’t start me on that white headboard – Burton’s thickly-applied hair dye will soon make a mess of that. There are no interesting camera angles, or lighting, to underscore the narrative. It’s as if my dad had persuaded Burton and Loren to visit our 70s South Yorkshire home and filmed them with his little cine camera.

There’s no magic here. None. Avoid it and instead join me in watching the original yet again.

A new release from the remarkable Rose English

Seal Mother ~ A Selkie Tale in Verse by Rose English

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#StoriesInVerse #Folklore #Selkie #Seals

One lonely seal in the midst of the ocean rolls on the waves to the rhythmical motion. The seal watches over the child on the sand. Her lovely young daughter born of the land.

On Midsummer’s Eve seals swim up onto the sand, shed their skin and transform into beautiful young women to give thanks to the mysterious Moon Goddess. Lost in dance, no one notices a shimmering sealskin being stolen; leaving one beautiful Selkie trapped on the land forever. Can an unlikely friend help her reclaim her skin, or is she destined to remain forever in human form? ‘Seal Mother’ – a magical Selkie tale of love, loss and deceit, told in verse. (Click image to enlarge)

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Buy Links

Amazon: http://viewbook.at/SealMother Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40745694-seal-mother—a-selkie-tale-in-verse

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YouTube Teaser:

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About Rose English:

Living on ‘England’s Green & Pleasant Land’, among the gentle rolling hills of the Herefordshire Countryside, Rose’s house is wall to wall books. She even has a ‘Leaning Tower of Paperbacks’. Rose is a dreamer, preferring a simple & quiet life. Often spending time alone, although never lonely, being ever surrounded by great characters when lost in a good book. She loves theatre and the arts, adoring live performances on stage. Rose has very eclectic tastes. Working as a school librarian, and sharing her love of books with children, was the best job she ever had. However, life moves on and another chapter was only a page turn away.

Author Links

Website: https://roseenglishukauthor.wordpress.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/RoseEnglish.UK.Author/ Twitter: @RoseEnglishUK

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Rafflecopter Giveaway

Chance to win either a signed copy of ‘Seal Mother ~ A Selkie Tale in Verse’ or an eBook version.

Click HERE to enter the Giveaway

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Thank You for visiting good luck in the Giveaway

The Joy of One Star, No.2 – The Bible – “Where’s the dinosaurs?”

The Joy of One Star – a new strand in which I enjoy 1-star review comments left on Amazon about various popular items. Click here for No.1 – Thor:Ragnarok.

According to Amazon, this is The Holy Bible “by King James (author)”, although to be fair the product description does say it contains the words of God. Reviewer vine voice is not impressed: “if God wrote this, as the product page asserts, why is it 99 cents?”, while sactomike complains that God “blows up my Kindle every time I re-load this bible.”

Others are similarly unimpressed. Charlotte Gresham, bless her, takes time out of her busy day to tell us that she has “never order this or received it. So it should not receive any stars.” That’ll teach King James. Amazon Customer makes no sense by telling us “This dosent make sense where is the triple 6 at.” (sic), while enchantress6274 is fuming. “This version is blasphemy!” she rants. “I was ashamed! I am trying to be a wonderful and loyal wife to Christ but this book takes his title of deity from him!”

There are a few more considered, literary criticisms. Tatiana Vain says “If the writer was going for the avangarde and a post modernity, then he failed as well.” And here’s Amazon Customer again (although now I think of it probably not the same one) – “Probably more than 31 million murders in this over the top book. To make it worse, the mysogony is way over the top and the glorification of owning slaves makes this an unbearable travisty. Skip this one! You will be happy you did.” Consider me warned, Mr. Customer. Kiyura Good is concerned that “the main character didnt feature until halfway through the book and was far to predicable as the ‘nice guy — (goody to shoes)’”. Stupid, predictable do-gooder Jesus.

As usual, I’ll leave you with my favourite review, from a Jeremy Dinsel – “Where’s the dinosaurs?”

The Joy of One Star, No.1 – Thor:Ragnarok

The Joy of One Star – a new strand in which I enjoy 1-star review comments left on Amazon about various popular items.

Bad reviews tend to fall into two categories – reviews of the thing itself, be that a film, book or whatever, and others that review either Amazon or the postal service, like this one for Thor-Ragnarok – “I have yet to watch this movie. This is a review about the physical blu-ray case.” Really? You’re reviewing a case? Well … OK, why not, I guess? But at least have the decency to give the film itself 3-stars while you’re at it. After all, one should never judge a DVD by its case, should one? Others of this ilk include “Don’t buy this does not play.” and “Disc broken.” Why are these people telling us, rather than sending it back for a replacement?

There are those who really don’t like the film, of course. “Bollox” says evabraun (no relation, surely?). I’m not sure whether that’s a criticism or a request for a future porn version. (Thor:Ragnabollox). Reviewer EMJAY is on some sort of misogynistic crusade – “PC culture being implemented to appease a minority … male characters are feminised, and female characters are shown as the champions of the day? A piss take too far”. S J Thorpe sums up the disappointment of all of us who went to see the film for a treatise in Nordic mythology – “the plot was nothing like the tale from the Edda from the Nordic folklore.”

I’ll leave you with my favourite review. “One word – really disappointed.”

Magical and magnificent, bewitching and beautiful

A review of Bring Back Home, by Ange Hardy.

First of all, that cover by Michael Cook. Absolutely a work of art. You can’t tell from the picture there, but it shines luxuriously with gold leaf on willow-leaf and moon-crest. You’ll want to have a bit of a fondle, and why not?

When you’ve finished pleasuring yourself that way, you big weirdo, surrender yourself to the music. With the addition of Lee Cuff on cello and Peter Knight – a long-time hero of mine – on fiddle, Ange’s sixth studio outing has an extra, beguiling layer of complex beauty over and above the mesmerising song-writing and rhythmical nous of her preceding albums (the glorious Esteesee is a standout album that everyone should own).

These are songs by a master-songwriter, performed with flair and confidence. I’m not going to bang on about every track individually, but I must single out the album opener, Sisters Three. It’s three minutes and fifty-nine seconds of sheer, bloody, untrammelled joy. It had me leaping and dancing like an eejit, not a sight oft seen in these days of dry age. It also begs to be written as a short story, and I’ll be on that like a tramp on chips, if Ange doesn’t mind. From the haunting, violin-wail strangeness of The Hunter, The Prey (part of Ange’s ‘mother Willow Tree’ sequence of songs) to Chase the Devil Down (a song to give strength to all of us who find our loving hearts pierced occasionally by the steel teeth of the uncaring modern world), every song here is equally strong, equally stirring, and each an instant classic.

More than anything, I love the landscape of Ange’s songs – in her own words, “Willow trees and streams interspersed with dense woodlands, immense trees with tremendous root structures.” It’s a land of wonders. Join me, and let us adventure in that country with a smile on our faces and dance in our steps. The rewards are legion. I love this album so much that my inner editor even forgives the occasional spelling error in the booklet, and so will you. It’s right champion, this music. Makes my old blood sing. Five wombats out of five.

Review: The Passing of the Years – Liz Crippin

This CD of six songs (which makes it an EP in my book) was recorded live, and mostly in one take. The tracks are simply acoustic guitar and voice, creating a spareness that gives these melodic morsels of emotional oomph the space they need to breathe. You’re going to need two or three listens before you begin to realise the true depth and impassioned resonance of Liz Crippin’s songs. They speak of longing, love and lust; regret, remorse and rumpy-pumpy.

Her finger-picking guitar style melds with beautiful phrasing and intriguing, surprising chord patterns to provide a high, airy platform for Liz’s touching Welsh-accented voice to purr through the emotional gears. Sharp, intelligent lyrics reward more than one listen, too, as clever wordplay and metaphor are gradually revealed.

The title track gets into your blood. You’ll be playing it in your head for days. The pretty Rosie’s Song, a hymn of love for a beloved guitar, simply shines with beauty – listen to that guitar line, though, for a real release of endorphins. And if the unrequited longings of ‘Invisible’ don’t pull at your heart then you’re not a human being. If I have one criticism, it is that ‘Hurricane Girl’ needs more power in the chorus, as of a storm-driven wave hitting the shore. Perhaps, though, that was a limitation imposed by the recording conditions. I can’t wait for the album version.

I adore this CD. You will too. The Passing of the Years by Liz Crippin. Songs: Rosie’s Song, Monsters, Hurricane Girl, Invisible, You Don’t Know Me. Five happy wombats out of five.

Buy it here: http://lizcrippinmusic.com/buy-my-music/

Percy Filth

Is this the worst sex scene ever written? It should be, since I compiled it from the books nominated for this year’s Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, along with two also-rans. I’ve colour-coded the sentences so you can see who wrote what, and have altered pronouns and tenses so that the whole thing makes a kind of horrible sense. Get the smelling salts ready…

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She locked the cubicle door and pulled at his leather belt. “You’re beautiful,” she told him, going down on to her haunches and unzipping him. He watched her passport rise gradually out of the back pocket of her jeans in time with the rhythmic bobbing of her buttocks as she sucked him. He arched over her back and took hold of the passport before it landed on the pimpled floor. Despite the immediate circumstances, human nature obliged him to take a look at her passport photo. His heart immediately started hammering like mad, and a fiery heat welled up inside him. He wanted to ask something, something tremendously urgent, something incredibly important, something that was tingling on the tip of his tongue but already her other hand was on his other buttock. Once he’d trained his sphincter to stop reflexively impersonating a Chinese finger trap, it felt pretty good. She pushed on his hips, an order that thrust him in. He entered her. Not only his prick, but the whole of him entered her, into her guts. “Anne,” he said, stopping and looking down at her. She was pinned like wet washing with his peg. “Till now, I thought the sweetest sound I could ever hear was cows chewing grass. But this is better.” He swayed and they listened to the soft suck at the exact place they met. The act itself was fervent. Like a brisk tennis game or a summer track meet, something performed in daylight between competitors. The cheap mattress bounced. They breathed heavily, breached, adjusting to air. There was a fish smell too, as if the tide had just gone out. When she was sufficiently aroused, a hush finally settled and then with a sigh she rolled over gently onto her back and lay like a doe turning in leaves.

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The Books:

• Men Like Air by Tom Connolly
• The Butcher’s Hook by Janet Ellis (yes, the former Blue Peter presenter)
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
• A Doubter’s Almanac by Ethan Canin
• The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca
• Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

REVIEW: The Voice of Reason by Edward Ian Kendrick

The Game is a futuristic bloody killfest put on for the entertainment of the masses in the late 21st century. An Exhibition Match is mounted to decide the greatest fighters of all time, and the book is written from the viewpoint of the commentator known as The Voice.

Unlike some reviewers on Amazon, I found the opening slow. I had to force myself through the first few chapters before the style of writing – a combination of interviews, flashbacks and autobiographical rantings from The Voice (not a character I ever really warmed to) – began to weave its spell on me.

I’m pleased that I persevered, for the novel grows into a “beautiful kaleidoscope of blood, violence, gore and vengeance”. Not kidding, these pages are soaked with red, but the action is so well-written, so well paced that I never felt like I was reading some schlock-horror pulp. This is superbly-crafted book for adults. Take it on the bus with you and you’ll miss your stop.

4/5 wombats for Ed Kendrick’s The Voice of Reason.

A Perfect State of Grind – Bolton’s @thecoffee_grind

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know of my occasional forays along the deeply dismal A58 to Bolton, whose market is smaller but far more vibrant and less anodyne than Bury’s vast but mostly bland affair. You will also be aware of my love of the coffee served by Nigel at The Coffee Grind in Bolton Market. Why, I even wrote him into a short story, look.

Well, here’s good news – Nigel and Gill have expanded with a new shop on busy Newport Street. It’s on the left as you walk up from Town Hall Square. Stepping inside The Coffee Grind from the busy thoroughfare is like walking into a welcoming cup of finest coffee after a busy day (without getting wet: you understand similes, right?). The ambience is welcoming, calm and full of taste. There’s a sense of enormous space, thanks to the mirror wall at the far end, and more seating downstairs for those who prefer a more intimate setting, like lovers or spies.

With the extra space come extra goodies, and Gill will happily sate any hunger you might have for cake and paninis. Nigel continues to rush his bottom off serving punters in the market, so now you have a choice of independent venues at which to buy coffee (or tea, or, I have to say, a quite stonking hot chocolate). Avoid the major chains and give The Coffee Grind a try. Your tastebuds will love you for it.