David Fickling Books

The final part of the John Dickenson Trilogy  "The Fatal Child" the previous two having been The Cup of the World and The Widow King.

I have so enjoyed the final part of this trilogy, although John Dickenson may decide to add an additional story because it would be interesting to see how everything turns out with all the other characters in the books.

John Dickenson has surpassed himself with this series of books with the first book of his trilogy being his first ever book when he wrote it.  The characters have all grown in stature through the books. 

This is a small book with ten short stories, some are very strange but they do as the back cover states "Ten stabs at the Heart - Ten tales that poke and jab at your darkest fears and your secret desires."

All of the stories are well written but some are mighty weirdly off world, but even though they are weird they really do get your mind working.

This is an amazing book about the finding of a bog child during the times of the troubles between Ireland's north and south.  At the time of the hunger strikers in the Maze Prison (H Block). 

I loved the book, and the story behind the main story, that of the brother of the main character Fergus, who gets caught up in the cross border troubles. Fergus becomes friends with the archaeologist who is doing research and gets to choose a name for the bog child - who he calls Mel - then many mysterious things start to happen!

This book struck me as strange until I was half way through and realised that Olive had an imaginary friend called Pip who she talks to constantly

Pip, the story of Olive shows how a child whose parents have split up grows to cope with living with her mum who is a high flying lawyer and the scraps  she gets into with Pip who she always blames for her problems.

Olive seems a quiet little thing with Pip, just the opposite, one always leads the other one on.  They have quite a few adventures together with Pip always seemingly landing Olive in a heap of trouble.

This is a brilliant yet heartbreakingly debut novel by Siobahn Dowd.

The author has written this story around a family in the South of Ireland where the daughter of the family is having to hold the family together, because a father has become an alchoholic.  She has no one to turn to when things start to go wrong and the outcome is not one any young person should have to go through.

The  story is so moving and it shows how little country villages can twist and turn incidents to their own agenda and have people pilleried by the village folk just by blatent gossip.

Linda Newbury as written yet another fabulous book called At The Firefly Gate. 

This is the forth of Linda Newbery's books and it is a wonderful story.  Linda gives wonderful descriptions not only of the countryside where the story is set but you can really visualize the characters.

I love the book and was really stuck with my nose in it and did not want to put it down. The area of the story reminds of places around Duxford airfield, though I'm not sure that this is where it is meant to be set.  The characters are very ordinary people but they really come to life in her book.

This book by Linda Newbury is beautifully written with fabulous description and expressive dialogue.

Set in Stone, is a very deceptive book and is not what one would believe it to be about if you were to just look at the dust cover. It depicts a rambling old building set behind big gates - yes the gates are in the story and so is the house but the descriptions of the house in the story are wonderful. The house has been built especially for the owner, who commisioned it and has designed or been involved in every aspect of its build and the sculptures around the walls.