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Narrated by Catherine HoJessamyn Teoh, raised in the USA by Malaysian parents, goes back to the land she left when she was a toddler. Her father has been ill, but he goes to work for a relative while Jess and her mother are closeted with family. Jess future plans have been scuppered, she daren't tell her parents she's gay, and keeps ker girlfriend secret. So when she starts hearing voices, she puts it down to stress, but it's just one voice. Jess is being haunted by the ghost of her dead maternal grandmother Ah Ma, who was a spirit mediun and avatar for Black Water Sister, a mysterious and fearsome deity. Ah Ma needs to settle a score with a rich and powerful gang boss and she intends that Jess help her to do it. This is a story about spirits, gods, ghosts and family secrets and Jess needs to sort it all out before she can get her life back on track. The reading is good, the story interesting, and the contemporary Malaysian setting is fascinating.
Narrated by Rupert Degas
Audiobook narrated by Zachary Quinto
Audiobook read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer
Murphy Lawless, pseudonym for C.E. Murphy, has written a whole series of shapeshifter romances. This is the first. Anna is a conservationist who spends her time on expeditions observing and protecting rare animal species. She's mostly funded by the Gladiator Foundation owned by the reclusive Garius Beren, who just happens to be a bear shapeshifter tied into the tradition of Roman gladiators. Within hours of meeting (at a gala for the foundation) Garius and Anna fall instantly in love and are kidnapped together by Remus, a wolf-shifter and Garius' enemy, who runs illicit arena games on a secret island off the Italian coast. Anna proves up to the task of outwitting Remus and releasing Garius (in bear form) from the arena. But that's just the start. It seems that Anna and Garius are fated mates (that's a thing in the shifter world) but Garius is overprotective and it nearly causes disaster. This is a fun read, tightly written and a real page-turner. Lawless is an assured writer and not a word is wasted. I read it on kindle which meant I could ignore the tacky half-naked male torso on the cover. I hate those kind of covers, but I guess the reader knows exactly what they're getting.
Before I start a review I have to say that this has one of those cringeworthy covers that I hate: the half-naked, well muscled male torso with a dipping waistband and no face. It also has a title that doesn't reflect the story. I don't recall much lace at all. However, having said that, I was in the mood for something light and this fitted the bill. It's a time-travel-to-17th-century-Scotland story which owes something to Outlander and pays its debt with a plethora of pop-culture references.
Narrated by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
I had this book as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) from the publisher via NetGalley and was very pleased to be able to take a peek before publication. I've read all the other Elizabeth Cage book (and every Jodi Taylor book I can get my hands on) so I was really looking forward to this - and it did not disappoint. Note for new readers, this in NOT the place to start. Go back and read White Silence, Dark Light and Long Shadows before tackling this one. Elizabeth Cage can read people's auras. She sees them as colours and can tell their mood and whether they are lying or not. No one can keep a secret from her. In White Silence, this led to a great deal of trouble via Doctor Sorensen in the wake of the sudden death of Elizabeth's husband, Ted. Incarcerated in Sorensen's clinic, Elizabeth met Michael Jones, a somewhat shady character with dark governmental connections. In the previous three books they saved each other (a lot), and as this fourth book opens Elizabeth is living a quiet life, which is exactly how she likes it - or does she? Things are changing. Something happened last Christmas that she can't quite remember, and on top of that she might have accepted a freeelance job from an unnamed government department that Jones seems very familiar with. And then she finds blood on her doorstep. Iblis and his mangy dog, Nigel turn up. Iblis speaks in eighteenth century cadences and likes to eat fish and chips, drink Elizabeth's beer and watch her TV. His partner, Melek, is something of an enigma and might or might not have powers, but certainly knows a lot more about Elizabeth than she's telling. Then Elizabeth gets a note, apparently in her own handwriting: 'I always send the serpent...' Elizabeth doesn't know what's going on which, apparently, is for her own good. Yeah, right. During the course of this book she finds out. Written in Jodi Taylor's quirky style this is a supernatural thriller. Expect danger, magic, revisiting the scenes of former adventures and - oh yes - a serpent. Something is trying to rise from the darkness under a bad moon. Highly recommended.
Audiobook narrated by Emma Newman.
Narrated by Harrie Dobby
Audiobook read by Steven Crossley
What if Prince Charming is not only devastatingly handsome and as charming as his name, but also a con-man, liar and fraud? That’s what the first book in this series explores, together with the princesses he’d duped (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel etc.) who were hot on his trail and out for payback. In the follow-up book Charming himself is caught up in another twisted fairy tale as he ends up in the stately home of an ensorcelled beast along with two other hapless victims, Hans and Will. The beast is as much a prisoner as they are, and only solving the riddle can save her. Charming might even have feelings for her, but he has a date with Mephistopheles, and time is running out. Our princesses need to free him. They come across two potential enemies, or maybe powerful allies, in the Bear Witch and Red Cap (analogues of Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood). More delightful grown-up fairy tale nonsense from the assured pen of Jade Linwood. And though this has a satisfying ending there’s obviously another book to come. Looking forward to it.
Calvin Cutter, film maker extraordinaire, returns to St Mary’s to make a new series of Tempora the Time Travelling Tourist, and Max is tasked with babysitting Astrid Gustafssen, the series star. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters Adrian, one of the teapot time travelling siblings, takes Astrid to Troy, and loses her. Unfortunately most of St Mary’s staff were in Troy at that time, so since you can’t go back to a time you’ve already visited, only Max, Markham, Adrian and Evans can form a search party and both Max and Markham will die at midnight if they don’t get out of Troy before their younger selves arrive. No pressure then. And while they’re at it they encounter Odysseus and Diomedes on a secret mission to steal the Palladium which ultimately leads to the fall of Troy. Once again, history hangs in the balance. I love Jodi Taylor's St Mary's books.
Read by Bianca Amato
Audiobook read by Sally Darling.
Aimed at the upper end of the YA age range, this is a story in two parts with two focus figures, Lena and Constance. Lena is a cryptling, one of the hidden people who service the revered Ancestors, condembed to that life because of a facial birthmark. When she is accused of being a mage and sentenced to death she bolts from the walled city of Duke's Forest and into the woods where she encounters Constance, who is a mage, and desperately trying to re-enter the city of her birth, a city to which she is heir. Constace is also a mage and her stated purpose is to destroy the spell which hangs over Duke's Forest ,a spell of cloud-darkness and corruption which will eventually cause the dead to rise. Constance directs Lena towards Emris, a hunter-mage, who takes her under his wing and initiates her into magical education. (She does seem to pick it up a bit too easily, but that's probably necessary to move the story forward and keep pace with Constance's narrative.) When it transpites that Lena has the key to the spell to which Constance is trying to find the key, and that Constance is in trouble, she heads back to Duke's Landing. There are some twists in this, two strong female leads presenting alternating storylines, and an interesting magic system. There's also an unreliable narrator element which is difficult for any author to pull off, but Ms Lupo manages it successfully.
Dan Mackmain, the son of a dryad and a mortal man, is given another job by the Green Man, but he has to figure out exactly what the job is before he can do it. We’re about halfway through the book before Dan discovers the real (urgent and dangerous) problem, but not to worry there’s plenty of action right from the start including a bunch of pickaxe wielding kelpies in search of lost property. The stakes get higher as the book progresses, and Dan brings in help from a lot of the characters we’ve met in earlier Green Man books, ones who have a foot in the human world and the magical one. Besides kelpies, expect swan maidens (and men) dryads, wise women and cunning men, not to mention dangerous hags and a main antagonist who might be impossible to overcome… but Dan has a plan. As usual Ms McKenna keeps up the pace, the interest and the danger while showing a vast understanding of British folklore and traditions. I had this as an advance reading copy from the publisher. It’s due out on 15th November, and well worth reading – though if you haven’t read the other Green Man books (starting with Green Man’s Heir) I recommend you treat yourself and start from the beginning.
Narrated by Will Watt.
Narrated by Will Watt.
Set in thirteenth century Bohemia, this is a book of two parts. It doesn't go where you expect it to go, which makes the ending a little disjointed. It feels as though the author changed her mind part-way through and instead of a happy-ever after, turned and charged in another direction completely. Mouse is a healer, trained at and sheltered by Father Lucas at the Abbey. She has powers of compulsion and necromancy, which she (mostly) conceals and tries not to use. When young king Ottakar shows up, wounded, Mouse saves his life and agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer and ward. They fall in love, but Ottakar must marry for dynastic reasons, and now to someone who doesn't know her own parentage. Mouse is shuffled off, but it doesn't end well, especially when she discovers who her father really is. I really enjoyed the forst part, but the second part lost my sympathy. The book is read by Justine Eyre, and I've said before that I don't particularly like her English accent (she's Canadian) because it's too 'royal family' with words like 'here' turning into 'heeyah.' She sounds as though she's specialised in trying to sound like Queen Elizabeth II circa 1955. A little too clipped. A little too posh. If you want a book read in an English accent, why not pick an English actress to do the job? There are two more books in this sequence, set in the present day, but I won't be picking them up.
Perhaps I should have started with the first Thorn book, but having read a couple of other Maradaine books I thought I’d be OK with this one, however it’s probably not a great entry point for the Thorn books. There were a lot of secondary characters that I didn’t know as well as the author expected me to.
Narrated by Justine Eyre
Narrated by Moira Quirk
Narrated by Zoe Mills.
Bandit, Roz, spots what looks like an easy mark, a soft young man with a treasure map, in a country inn. He easily attaches himself with the intent to wait until the young man has found the treasure and then rob him. Unfortunately for Roz, the soft young man is Penric, who is neither as young nor as soft as he looks, and is posessed of a very clever demon, Desdemona. Pen is one step ahead of Roz all the time, well, maybe until a whole outlaw band turns up, anyway. Penric's treasure is not at all what Roz expects it to be - though those of us who have read earlier Penric stories, could have guessed what it was likely to be - and Penric is less concerned with being robbed than with giving the young bandit a chance for redemption. Another satisfying entry in the saga of Penric and Desdemona.
Narrated by Kate Reading. 
Set in the Elizabethan era, Isabelle is working as an apothecary's assistant in London, having run from her husband, Nicholas, six years earlier. An attempt to poison the queen sets an investigation in motion which brings Nicholas (part of Walsingham's spy-ring) to investigate and in doing so find his wife again. There's a romance and a mystery, an evil mother-in-law, and witchcraft. The narration is decent, but not spectacular.
A fantasy gumshoe novel. Eddie LaCrosse has left his former life and become a private investigator. He’s drawn back to his former life where he was a baron and good friend of the king until his lover (the princess) was killed. The queen has been accused of killing and eating her own child, and the king is wracked with grief. Eddie has to solve the mystery of what really happened, but there’s a twist. There’s an added complication because he recognises the queen from an earlier time.
A Frogmorton Farm short story featuring Jenny and Russell Checkland and an invisible golden horse called Thomas, who smells of warm ginger biscuits, and who helped Jenny over a rough period in her growing-up years. The Checkland kids are off on a school trip, so Jenny and Russell are looking forward to some couple-time. Unfortunately a storm front is moving in and the power is out. When Jenny's dangerous cousin Christopher shows up, things aren't looking good for Jenny. Her aunt is in trouble and fear (as well as rain) is in the air.
Read by Noah Galvin who has the perfect voice for teenage Jake who helps out at his dad’s zoo, which just happens to hold about 200 of the world’s remaining Dragons in a large protected wilderness. When he finds a dying dragon and a defenceless baby, he takes care of the tiny creature, thereby breaking a number of laws. The style is chatty and engaging. The narrator is brilliant, bringing Jake to life.
The Scarlet Pimpernel with Vampires, told from the viewpoint of servant girl, Eleanor, who just happens to look enough like Marie Antoinette to be invited to take part in a daring rescue in revolutionary France with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Along the way she faces a crazed vampire, is captured by revolutionaries, and begins to wonder who the real villains are. I confess I never read the original (though I’ve seen several movie and TV versions) but this is intriguing enough.
Read by Stephen Bel Davies
Audiobook. Sadly, did not finish, possibly because of the reader Taylor Meskimen who seemed OK at first, but gradually began to get on my nerves with a soft, even voice. I’ll probably give it another go later because generally I’m a big fan of Charles de Lint’s urban/faerie fantasies.
I read this many years ago, before I started to keep my book logs, so have just revisited it via audiobook read by Marguerite Gavin. Not much of it had stuck with me, and as the story progresses, I begin to realise why. Lord Ingrey kin Wolfcliff, a tough troubleshooter for a high-up politician,
Original review 2018.
Original review from 2015.
Team 236 (Team Weird) Matthew Farrell, Jane Lockland and Luke Parrish, are barely talking to each other after their adventures and the revelations in the previous two books (Hard Time, and About Time). Jane and Lt Grint are still dancing around each other, a mixture of attraction, insecurity and embarrassment. Mikey (Amanda Meiklejohn) is now doing research for the Time Police, and her experiment with rapid-hardening string leaves a good proportion of officers temporarily encased, so when two teenagers are reported to have built a pod and gone trainspotting to Rome in 1911, Team 235 is called to action. The train being spotted is the notorious Zanetti train which left Rome, entered a tunnel and was never seen again. Things get complicated when Sawney, a misogynistic ex-Time Police Officer who has bad history with Jane, turns up. He and the boys, plus Jane and Luke end up on board the doomed train, which is destined to bounce around the timeline like a runaway ghost train. This book is mostly a linear story of the train, Luke and Jane's attempts to get off it, Matthew's adventures in the Time map, trying to discern its whereabouts (and whenabouts), and Lt Grint's Team 236, efforts hurtling after the train to rescue their missing officers. (Though, let's face it, Grint is mostly about rescuing Jane and if he saves Luke as well, no harm done.) A straightforward story which enhances the relationship between Team Weird and Grint, who is possibly not as dumb as he has appeared to be in the past, and also reveals a secret that the TP is hiding which sows a little seed for the future. Another excellent book from Jodi Taylor.
Audiobook narrated by: Kate Rawson.
Audiobook narrated by: Kate Rawson
Audiobook read by Paul Woodson
Jenny Checkland, now married to volatile and eccentric artist, Russell, and mother to baby Joy. Should be safely free of her grasping and cruel family. Her chaotic life with Russell, Boxer the nervous horse, Marylin the noisy donkey, a bunch of Patagonian Attack Chickens, a snooty neighbour, Bill the insurance man who is courting the Checklands' housekeeper, Mrs Crisp, and a magnificent golden horse called Thomas who smells of warm ginger biscuits, and whom no one but Jenny can see. And then Jenny's dangerous cousin Christopher turns up with malice and greed in his heart, helped by Jenny's eveil uncle. Quirky and engaging, this is nicely narrated by Lucy Price-Lewis
Audiobook read by Benadette Dunne
Audiobook read by Benadette Dunne
Tom Holt writing as K.J.Parker
In the second Saevus Corax book K.J. Parker (Tom Holt under another name) gets Saevus into even deeper hot water. Saevus and his crew of battlefield scavengers do capture the castle (though not by conventional methods) however they find an old frenemy, Stauracia, inside and the plot thickens. What value does the castle hold? There's no treasure and its military position is negligable. Saevus’s evil mother-in-law is up to her neck in manipulating Saevus who sets off through enemy territory (where foreigners are eaten) to find his estranged wife. As you might guess, things don’t go smoothly. The tome of this book is absolutely delicious, quirky as you might expect from Tom Holt. I immediately grabbed the third one and am reading it now.
Audiobook narrated by Derek Perkins.
