Shine by Kate Maryon

A new life in the country?

Review by Maryon

Tiff has everything she could want - 3 ipods, a drawer full of rings, bangles and necklaces, giant tv, her own laptop .... but has begun to realise that her Mum isn't necessarily bothering to PAY for them. Then one night Tiff sees Mum's 'business partner' Mikey on Crimewatch and when her Mum is arrested Tiff is sent to live with her unknown Aunt on Sark - a total dead end,'the most boring place on the planet', which Mum left in a hurry many years before and has never returned to .

Tiff has to leave her city life full of glitz, shopping and takeaways and swap to the totally quiet life of a remote island - with no cars, shopping malls or fast food - but where, instead of not being allowed out ever on their own, kids can roam free as much as they like. Hanging out watching DVDs, playing beauty make-overs and drinking pretend cocktails is swapped for bike rides, tree houses and, for the fortunate ones, horses. Tiff has to get to know her Mum's family, has to make new friends and discover why some people are not as friendly as others. But when she has built a new life will mum come back as her usual self and disrupt it all?

A great junior chick-lit read for girls of 9+ about being let down by those you depend on, up-rooting your life and having to make a new one in a strange place. Fans of Cathy Cassidy or the older Gwyneth Rees' books will love it.

One for fans of Cathy Cassidy

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher - Harper Collins

Genre - Children's (Junior Chick Lit?)

Pirates Don't Clean Their Teeth by Adrian Summerson

Bedtime reading
Review by TheMole(Gerry)

This book was a delight for me. I had been a little nervous about reviewing it as our youngest is now 13 but while reading it all those memories of bedtime stories came flooding back.

Ben gets up and decides that today he is a Pirate and sets about doing piratey things, ably prompted and assisted along the way by his Mum and Dad.


I particularly liked the language in this book. Too often books reduce the language to baby speak and can end up patronising children but this book uses everyday language that is credible, polite and simple (but not overly). It also contains a lot of humour which adults can enjoy and the child can too which makes it great 'quality time' reading. This book would be a delight at bedtime for youngsters and I wish I had had it when ours were young.

TheMole's review - 4 stars


Review by Maryom


I agree with TheMole but would just add a couple of things....

I think that the colours could have been brighter and Lizzie The Critic shares this view. I would also like to have seen the phrase "They do in this house" repeated a couple more times somewhere in the text.

Putting that to one side though I would STRESS that I agree with TheMole about everything else.

A delightful book which, if I found it in a shop, I would buy for my toddler (if I still had one).

Maryom's review - 4 stars

Solar by Ian McEwan

Right Choice - Wrong Reason
Reviewed by TheMole(Gerry)


Sometimes there are books you wished you had never picked up - but not for the obvious reasons. This was such a book. Having arrived at the end of my current 'reading for review' pile but awaiting another book due to arrive imminently I tried to go without a book for a few days but I was advised to look at the unread pile. Reluctantly I took myself to the pile and scanned through. I was looking for a book that had a boring cover. Having eliminated some I then went through and looked for a boring synopsis and found this book. I won this book in an online competition and it is not the one I entered for but it came with the book I wanted. I would start it, find it put downable and move on to the next book when it arrived.

All too frequently I find the synopsis is not what the book is really about and here, yet again I found it. "Solar is a serious and darkly satirical novel". Not the copy I read!

Professor Beard is a Nobel prize winner as a theoretical physicist extending Einsteinian theory. The problem is he is starting to believe he is a spent force. He is also seriously overweight and constantly having affairs with women. He about at the end of his fifth marriage his life is rapidly becoming more and more farcical. I use the word 'farcical' deliberately because I did not read a serious novel, nor was it darkly satirical for me. It is written with humour - not one liners and not rib cracking funny but it did bring a smile to my face on MANY occasions. We follow Beard through an important time in his life and review his past and his loves.

It reads like a biography and although it does have a 'plot', the plot doesn't dominate the book no more than a biography. We only read a biography to read the 'plot' behind the success that made the publisher interested in printing it and in the case of Solar that is also sort of the plot.

Read this book and see all the strands of Beards life come together at the end with some twists and turns that came as surprises and to a conclusion that I hadn't expected but I did enjoy the ending.

TheMole's review - 3.5 stars

Publisher - Random House

Genre - General and literary fiction

Bree McCready and the Half-Heart Locket by Hazel Allan

Over the Moon Rainbow with Bree McCready

Reviewed by Maryom

In an article somewhere recently, Hazel Allan was being praised as the next JK Rowling. "Not another one!" I thought, "unknown writer brings out a book with a bit of magic in it and quicker than you can say Harry Potter they're being heralded as the new JKR". Now, I could never quite understand what all the fuss was about with HP - good, yes, but worth all those hysterical children? err, no. Anyway, I was intrigued when offered this book to review by Hazel Allan, herself.

Bree McCready wins an unusual prize - the Half-Heart Locket - in a school competition and finds herself whisked away on a series of amazing adventures. With her friends Honey and Sandy, she must follow the clues given in a mysterious, magical book, over the moon rainbow, in a non-stop race against time, to save the book, and the world, from the clutches of the evil Thalofedril.

Does it compare to Harry Potter? Not really but that's because it's not the same nature of book. It's a snappier, more action-packed, faster paced read, with less introspection and angst.

It's billed as a 9+ read and I was asked by my 13 year old daughter if she would like it, was it too 'young'? No, a quick lighter read for her maybe but still enjoyable.

It's a marvelous story with breath-taking rooftop escapes, a montrous villain, kind hearted helpers along the way, tear-jerking moments, oh, and horses - what more could you want in a book.

Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Strident Publishing

Genre - Children'sFantasy and Adventure

Furies Of Calderon by Jim Butcher

How to pick a book

reviewed by Maryom

The reason I picked up this book to read must be one of the strangest ever. I was having a conversation on Twitter about authors and their hair (don't ask!), and was informed that Jim Butcher was a male author with a head full of long flowing locks and that if I hadn't read any of his books I was missing out. So the only thing to do was dash off to the library ASAP and find a Jim Butcher book. Amazingly they had several in, but most fell partway through the Dresden Files series. Picking a series up in the middle can be confusing so I went for this book, Furies of Calderon, the first of the Codex Alera series.

The Aleran people have a special gift - the ability to join with one or more Furies - elementals of earth, fire, air, water or metal - to give them extra strength and powers. All except one boy, Tavi, who finds himself at the centre of the Aleran people's struggle to survive when invaded by their savage enemy and betrayed by power-hungry traitors. Tavi is, of course, to the plot.

So, did this bizarre method of choosing a book work - yes, strangely, it did. It's not the best fantasy novel ever but it's a long, long way from the worst. The characters appear as real people rather than 'cardboard cutouts' or stereotypes. The action moves along quickly and, with a desire to know what happens next, so does the reading. There's rather a lot of political manoeuvering and an awful lot of fighting - a little bit too much I felt at times, not in the amount of blood and gore, but just in the blow by blow accounting of who struck whom. On the whole though an enjoyable, interesting read and I will go on to read the next in the series, library stock permitting.

Maryom's review - 4 stars

Publisher - Orbit

Genre - Fantasy

Firebrand by Gillian Philip

I NEED to know - WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!!!!!

Firstly, I must say how pleased and excited I was to receive a proof copy of Firebrand - latest novel by Gillian Philip, due to be published on 13th August. Its the first in a fantasy series spanning 5 centuries set in both our, fully-mortal, world, and the world of the Sidhe, behind the Veil, in another dimension. The Veil is failing though and the Sidhe will no longer be hidden from the fully-mortals or safe from persecution by them. But before it does Kate NicNiven, the "neurotic and cruel" Sidhe queen intends to destroy it, and anyone in her way, in her wish to dominate BOTH worlds.

Seth is unceremoniously dumped by his mother with his father who has no interest in this son. He grows up with no real family until taken under the wing of his half brother so when that brother Conal is exiled into the world of the fully mortal, for opposing his Queen, Seth follows him out of loyalty. From the opening scene as Seth waits fearfully while his half brother is led out to be burned at the stake to the last dramatic chapter the reader is drawn along in a hellter skelter whirl. We share Seth's neglected childhood, run with him across heather moors and machair, ride with him as he tames his wild kelpie horse and follow him as he matures and learns to let down his defences enough to trust, and even love, others.

The other Gillian Philip books I've read have been modern, urban, gritty novels - full of knife crime, murder, dystopian futures - this book is a bit of a departure. Ok there's still the knives - well, swords- and a fair amount of murder and violence but set against the backdrop of the pristine wild land and sea scape of the Sidhe. The physical presence of this world really leapt out of the page at me as I read, with the feel of wind and sunshine over the machair, the shimmering sea, loch dripping with pigment. At times, Ms Philip builds a word picture akin to those of contemporary scottish West coast painters with their splashes of vibrant colour, pulsating with light, brought immediately to my mind by description of reflections in the water of a loch that a hand dipped in would come out 'dripping with pigment'.

This is an action packed, fast paced novel capable of surprising, despite many hints, to almost the last page, with a cast of real living breathing characters -the half-wild Seth, ruthless Queen Kate NicNiven, Catriona the fully mortal girl rescued and taken through the veil to a world so very different to her own. Although marketed here as YA I understand that in US it will be sold as adult fantasy and think it will be a worthy addition to the genre.

My only complaint is I NEED to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Strident

Genre - YA, fantasy

Have realised that I've made it sound like a cliff-hanger ending. It isn't. I REALLY dislike the cliff-hanger ending that just sets the scene for the next book. The plot for this book reaches an end but there's obviously an on-going story arc over the whole series.

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

And I don't like football!
Reviewed by TheMole(Gerry)


I decided to read this because my wife enjoyed it otherwise I wouldn't have considered it. I don't HATE football - I just dislike it. We have all heard it's 22 men chasing a ball etc. We have all heard the jokes:- "They were training with dustbins and the dustbins won.", "I phoned to find out what time the kickoff was and they asked what time I could get there!", "You watch them? They never came to see me when I was bad.", "They announce the crowd changes to the teams.". It's all been said and there isn't anything new. But this book isn't about football. Yes it goes on and on about it, but there is hardly a fact about it in the book.

Nick Hornby tells us of his relationship with football. How it was a way of getting quality time with his dad. How they would go every other week to see home games. How he felt on the terraces and he started to go with friends and later as a student how he changed his allegiance (temporarily) to a local team he could travel to see. How events were arranged, cancelled, attended or not attended around the home games

But more importantly it talks about his obsession with the game, an obsession he identifies as an obsession but not as a fault. He talks in a way that I found I could understand and I understood how people could become obsessed with any sporting event - events that they only spectate, either by attending or by watching on TV. It helped me to understand my own obsession with motor sports.

This book is serious but not so serious that lectures but it is not so funny that it had me rolling around laughing. It's greatest appeal is not to football fans but to those people who do not understand other people's obsessions with watching sport.

I would rate this book as a four star (****) read.

Publisher: Penguin
Genre: YA and Adult