Book

When a London journalist is dispatched to Dublin to do a feature on an old and almost forgotten form literary giant, she anticipates an easy task despite the old gentleman's affirmation that his story contains "lots of sex and some violence". However once she arrives she if gradually drawn into his reminiscences and into his current life. How much can she believe, is she being manipulated, what is the true state of affairs ? At the end, when she breaks free of them all and returns to London, the reader has some clues but the adventure was in the journey not the conclusion.

A short prologue introduces us to Scott and his wife, as their son dies unexpectedly and unexplained. We then meet the main character, Scott Henderson, again three years later. Scott has turned his back on his once affluent life, divorced and moved to the beach. His life is pretty boring - he gets up, goes to work, goes home, doesn't sleep much and then gets up and goes to work again at a local restaurant - as a waiter and sometimes chef; and although anyone would be screwed up after the death of their child, we learn more about his guilt as the story progresses.

A haunting tale of redemption and retribution in the lawless reaches of America's Deep South following the end of the second World War.

Beautiful evocative writing with a story line that is never predictable and finely drawn characters that capture concern and interest. Particularly well done is life on and around the Mississippi steamboats - the crew, the ports of call, the business and the punters.

Very good - recommended

I very much enjoyed reading Tina Turbin's children's book 'Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy' which is beautifully illustrated by Aija Jasuna. The bright colours will attract and entertain the reader in the 4-8 year old age group.

Who can not like Danny a very bright green dragon with multi colour spots and red boots, who makes friends with Jimmy who finds his shell on the sea shore and there upon begins his adventure with this little boy and his family.

A charming book that will please any child and adult reading it too them.

The dragons and their keepers are following the river upstream to try and find the fabled Dragon city of Kelsingra, aided by Captain Leftrin and his liveship Tarman. On the way, as one would hope, relationships and plot develop with detail and unexpected twists.

Sometimes writing is descriptively compared to food - a meaty tome, a fruity novel, a frothy tale - to my mind this trilogy is a deep, rich, undercooked black pudding with a crunchy lemon topping !

For information, as a codex can be defined as a manuscript of ancient annals, the Codex is the history of Deepgate, there is no other relevance in the plot.

In this volume, thank goodness Deepgate has practically collapsed into the abyss with only the Temple hanging upside down above the chasm. However the death of the god Ulcis has left the gates to hell unguarded and Dill and Rachel flee across the Deadsands to escape the hordes thus unleashed.

Now we meet other gods and the best defined character in the series John Anchor, who tows the god Cospinol's sky ship, adorned with corpses, down into hell to combat the King of Hell, Menoa.

In this, the last volume of the trilogy, there is finally a mention of sunlight ! Dill battles the arconites and all becomes more or less resolved.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that by this time I was skipping quite a lot, and never being able to quite get to grips with time travel, felt that this way of solving the conflict was a bit of a cop out.

If you like Mills and Boon with some Patricia Cornwall thrown in, then this is a good read for you! Don't be put off by the Prologue which tries too hard to be mysterious - once I got into the first chapter, I couldn't put Karen's book down!

The prequel to the brilliant Black Magician trilogy but sadly not as good. If one enjoyed that trilogy, this has to be read, but you may not want to keep it !

However, nice to read a stand alone fantasy book for a change and this is still a very readable book albeit lighter on character and plot than we have become used to from the author.