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You know how it is when someone gives you a paperback as a gift; you are never sure if you are going to like it, and if it happens to be translated form Norwegian and have a title relating to The First world War, then there is every reason to have a few doubts. But my doubts quickly faded after I started this book and it wasn't long before I was absolutely glued to it and resented every task that took me away from the next chapter.  If someone had told me that this book had won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction I would have believed them, it's that good.  Why is the cover not plastered with little rosettes from Prize giving organisations?  Lars Mytting has won prizes for his non-fiction work but he deserves more - and Paul Russell Garrett deserves another prize for a translation that doesn't in any way feel like one. The story follows Edvard Hirifjell through his quest to discover what really happened back in 1971 when his parents were killed in an accident and he was report...

  Cast aside everything you think you know about fairies and prepare to slip into a world within our world.  Doreen Hopwood has created an entire mythical civilisation with its own complex society and territorial conflicts, that functions just beyond human reach, and is only accessible through closely guarded portals. The world of Sidhthean is broken into territories held by fairies, goblins, trolls and gnomes and the most powerful ruler is Queen Ceriddwen who controls access to the Four Gates which can be opened onto to the human world.  Her kingdom has been put under threat by Gwynn ap Nudd, King of the Goblins, who has already invaded the Anunnaki lands and killed the entire population there, including the Anunnaki dragon fairies and shapeshifting flower fairies.  Now that Ceriddwen's son, the Crown Prince Gwion is presumed dead, Gwynn ap Nudd is threatening the Land of the Four Gates, and if he gains control of the land, he intends to invade and conquer the human...

 I'm not really sure where to start with reviewing this book as it is complicated and disturbing and I think only a person who has suffered some kind of trauma themselves could have written it. It begins in the early 1960 where we meet Isabel who lives alone in a house in the Netherlands that her family came to when she was young.  Right from the start it is clear that Isabel has issues.  She is obsessive and doesn't enjoy any kind of social interaction although she does occasionally meet up with her two brothers and their partners.  Isabel is keeping the house exactly as her mother kept it and she has taken on some of her mother's mannerisms as a way of navigating through certain situations.  She employs a young girl to come and cook and clean for her but she offers no friendship to the girl who has to deal with Isabel constantly checking on her. It is very hard to like Isabel as she has a mean side to her and will deliberately say things to hurt other people....

  I picked this one up because I thought it was written by David Mitchell the actor and when I got home and looked at it properly I realised it wasn't the same Davis Mitchell and I was a bit disappointed.  However, that disappointment did not last very long as I only had to get a page or two in before I was totally absorbed in it. Black Swan Green is a fictional village in Worcestershire and home to young Jason who is thirteen and living comfortably among a group of friends who all go to the same secondary school.  The book is set in the early 1980s, which is close enough to the 1970s when I was at secondary school, for me to find everything very familiar.   Back then, no-one was very interested in the mental health of teenagers and bullying was largely accepted as a fact of life unless it tipped over into something really noticeable.  Jason has a stammer which he is able to conceal most of the time by swapping out difficult words for something else, but if...

  An historical novel where the story takes place in the Spitalfields district of London in the second half of the 1700s.  At that time, Spitalfields was known for its silk weaving and the population was made up mostly of journeymen weavers and silk merchants.  In the years leading up to this time the silk they produced was considered to be some of the best in the world and commanded a very high price, but suddenly cheaper fabrics such as calico became available and many of the silk weavers were struggling to find work. The story follows a young woman called Sara who has been sent to London by her mother in the hopes that she will meet up with a cousin and make a good life for herself.  As Sara steps down from the cart that bought her in from the country, she is clearly alone and lost in the unfamiliar streets, and it isn't long before she is lured away by an older woman who claims she will look after her. Sonia Velton has done a good job of conjuring up the mix of e...

  This had me gripped from the very first line.  A woman has been admitted to to an Intensive Care Unit with breathing difficulties, and to complicate matters, she is thirty three weeks pregnant and her condition is deteriorating rapidly. What follows is a detailed account of all the tests and treatments the doctors carry out on Karin to try and establish what is happening.  Her partner Tom is also present and the book is written entirely from his point of view.  This is not the first time that Karin has been seriously ill, but none of her symptoms seem to be related to her past medical history, and just a few hours earlier she had nothing more serious than flu-like symptoms and a bit of a cough. I am always fascinated by anything related to medicine and I was impressed by the level of detail that the author managed to get into the narrative without making it seem like pages ripped from a medical textbook.  The tension is so real that it felt as though harm woul...

  I didn't find this a comfortable read.  Whereas some books make you feel as though you are sitting in front of a warm fire all wrapped up in a blanket, this is more like sitting in a cold outbuilding where you can never gather in any warmth. The review from The Times on the front states: ' This book demands to be savoured ' but right from the start I wasn't sure if I even wanted to read it.  It's set in the 1930s when many areas were plunged into poverty due to pit closures and the world-wide depression, and the British Government was setting up schemes to try and kick-start the economy and give people from deprived areas some form of employment. One of the schemes was set up by the Land Settlement Association that bought up farmland across Britain and then trained specially selected families how to work the land and make a profit.  The book tells the story of Lettie and Tommy who have come down from the north to take up a tiny piece of land in Essex.  They mo...