Title: Blackberry and Wild Rose Writer: Sonia Velton Publishing House: Quercus Date of Publication: January 10th 2019 Rating: 3 stars ‘’But there are no secrets in London. Even the houses lean across the narrow alleys towards each other and offer up their scandals in the blink of an open curtain.’’ A woman is trying to break the norms of…
Month: January 2019
Chinese Ghost Stories
Title: Chinese Ghost Stories: Curious Tales of the Supernatural Writer: Lafcadio Hearn Publishing House: Tuttle Publishing Date of Publication: September 10th 2011 (first published 1887) Rating: 4 stars “You will ask me who she was-beautiful Xue Tao…Gor thousands of years and even longer, the trees have been whispering over her stony bed. And the syllables of her name reach…
Christmas Dinner
Title: Χριστουγεννιάτικο Δέιπνο Writer: Various Publishing House: Νάρκισσος Date of Publication: November 2012 Rating: 5 stars ‘’…Paris with the snow falling. Paris with the big charcoal braziers outside the cafes, glowing red. At the cafe tables, men huddled, their coat collars turned up, while they finger glasses of grog Americain and the newsboys shout the evening papers. The buses rumble…
The Light In The Dark
Title: The Light In The Dark Writer: Horatio Clare Publishing House: Elliott & Thompson Date of Publication: November 1st 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Winter in the mountains is arresting in its drama, the light melting over the Brecon Beacons as though it carries cold in it, not heat. There are the lakes of mist, too, the sun riding high…
A Gentleman In Moscow
Title: A Gentleman In Moscow Writer: Amor Towles Publishing House: Penguin Random House Date of Publication: September 6th 2016 Rating: 5 stars ‘’On Saturday, the twenty-first of June 1946, as the sun rose high over the Kremlin, a lone figure climbed slowly up the steps from the Moskva River embankment, continued past St.Basil’s Cathedral, and made his way onto…
Cornish Short Stories: A Collection of Contemporary Cornish Writing
Title: Cornish Short Stories: A Collection of Contemporary Cornish Writing Writer: Edited by Emma Timpany and Felicity Notley Publishing House: The History Press Date of Publication: April 2nd 2018 Rating: 4 stars ‘’It was an Indian summer. Everyone said so. She enjoyed the sound of the words. In her mind they conjured a burning orange sky over parched hillsides and…
Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women
Title: Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women Writer: Dr. Sarah Bargiela, illustrated by Sophie Standing Publishing House: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Date of Publication: February 21st 2019 Rating: 5 stars Studying any material related to autism should be mandatory for all teachers. Apart from the actual teaching of a specific subject, we must support our students, we must…
The Invention of Ana
Title: The Invention of Ana Writer: Mikkel Rosengaard (translated by Caroline Waight) Publishing House: Custom House Date of Publication: February 13th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’They never went hungry, but there was no electricity, and she remembered the long, dark evenings in the apartment, the afternoons when there was so little to do that she was reduced to padding at…
Race Me in a Lobster Suit
Title: Race Me in a Lobster Suit: Absurd Internet Ads and the Real Conversations that Followed Writer: Kelly Mahon Publishing House: Quirk Books Date of Publication: March 26th 2019 Rating: 4 stars Many years ago in Greece, there was a superbly hilarious TV show, a political and social satire. One of my favourite sections in each episode was dedicated…
The World of Lore: Wicked Mortals
Title:The World of Lore: Wicked Mortals Writer: Aaron Mahnke Publishing House: Del Rey Date of Publication: May 29th 2018 Rating: 1 star ‘’ “I was born with the Devil in me’’, he wrote. “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born with…
Christmas Stories
Title: Χριστουγεννιάτικες ιστορίες Writer: Hans Christian Andersen, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bowen, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Michel Tournier edited by Κατερίνα Σχινά Publishing House: Ερατώ Date of Publication: November 2001 Rating: 5 stars ‘’One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant…
The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)
Title: The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) Writer: Katherine Arden Publishing House: Random House UK Date of Publication: January 10th 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Yesterday she saved your life, slew a wicked magician, set fire to Moscow and then saved it all in a single night. Do you think she will consent to disappear, for the price of…
Odette
Title: Odette Writer: Jessica Duchen Publishing House: Unbound Date of Publication: 29th November 2018 Ratings: 5 stars ‘’Now I talk but you don’t believe me.’’ My mother and I have a Christmas tradition that we try to follow religiously every year. Both being avid lovers of ballet, we have associated Christmas with this beautiful form of Art. Usually,…
The Opinionated Reader 