FANTASTIC FICTION – Escapes to other places and other times

Ambrose Bierce quipped that love is ‘a temporary insanity curable by marriage’. Body chemistry has to overcome reason to compel the sticky intimacy required for reproduction. It’s the price extracted from the individual for sexual reproduction. The subject of countless narratives in poetry, song, story and novel, the insanity of reading about love shows no […]

There is scarcely a corner of these damp islands of ours without some beauty or interest value. Even Essex. Holidaying in Colchester last Summer allowed me to enjoy the rich history of the area. Sarah Perry’s (http://www.sarahperry.net/) second novel, The Essex Serpent is set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890’s. It

The world in 2017 seems to be drifting as helplessly towards division and conflict as a log is swept to the rapids in a river. Anything that reminds us of the terrible cost of conflict and war, fiction or non-fiction is to be welcomed. Martha Hall Kelly (http://www.marthahallkelly.com/) has given us a powerful historical novel

The President of the United States has nominated Neil Gorsuch for The Supreme Court yesterday (1st February 2017). It is known that the composition of The Supreme Court will have far reaching effects on public and private life across the nation. The law and justice affect everyone, so practitioners in this field have to be beyond reproach.  

If you enjoyed The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, this psychological thriller by K.L. Slater (https://klslaterauthor.com/about/) will provide an entertaining read. The summary is as follows. Anna lives a solitary existence, taking solace in order and routine. Thirteen years previously someone had injured her very badly. Her only friend is the lonely old

Ross Armstrong (http://www.hamiltonhodell.co.uk/cv/client_ross-armstrong_id_100030.htm) is a British stage and screen actor who has performed in the West End of London, on Broadway and in theatres throughout the UK. He has acted in Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Deep Blue Sea. His TV appearances include Foyle’s War, Jonathan Creek, Mr Selfridge, DCI Banks

Fancy a gripping suspense thriller you could read straight through on a cold afternoon? Turn to an author who is fast gaining a reputation for serving up the goods – Ruth Ware. Her latest title is The Woman in Cabin 10. The summary is as follows. Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine is

Gerald Seymour has been entertaining us with adventure/crime/terrorism/military fiction in 32 novels since 1975. His latest is Jericho’s War. The summary is as follows. The occasion will demand nerve shredding courage that will affect many thousands of lives. A handful of men and women will converge on a barren stretch of Yemeni desert. Each of

This year sees the 20th anniversary of Tom Wolfe’s landmark novel The Bonfire of the Vanities of 1987. Seven years prior to its publication I had been shaken to be told by a biblical scholar that Ecclesiastes doesn’t belong in the Old Testament. It is evidently a Greek text, he proclaimed, and is not consistent