Buying a book because of a rave review is a risky business. Expecting something several degrees higher than the highest degree of excellence usually always disappoints. The book never turns out to be quite as funny/exciting/inspiring as the reviewer wrote. Well, that's not the case with Gwen Grant’s Private – Keep Out! It’s wonderful. Written …
The Inspector Frost series
I wonder whether these books could get published today. Frost chain-smokes, eats badly, regularly refers to women as ‘poor cows’ or ‘silly moos’ and is prone to jabbing his finger into someone bending over and calling out: ‘How’s that for centre?’ He’s as far from politically correct as you could get. He’s also …
Under the Dome
I read this when it was first issued in paperback, about ten years ago. I’ve just read it again for my book club, and it was even more intense and demanding the second time around. This story about totalitarianism taking hold in a small Maine town shut off from the outside world by an invisible …
Captive Hearts
One piece of Neil Gaiman’s advice for writers was not only to read, but to read ‘outside your comfort zone’. So I picked up Captive Hearts. My reluctance wasn’t due to its belonging to the MM gay romance genre; it’s the fact that it's a romance and most romance stories – in films or books …
