Another Space in Time

This is a well written romantic novel, rather let down by a poor final edit. The infrequent typos jarred particularly deeply because Patzer's writing is so very good. I can't help but think that the author was badly supported by her editor(s) and meddlers. From early on in this read I was rooting for the 'nice' characters, and was relieved when romance eventually got the upper hand, though I have to say I was rather disappointed at how easily the black witch was finally overwhelmed. Perhaps, a bit more on the moral conflict within her would have made capitulation easier to accept. Someone so black should not have turned to a light tone of grey so easily. All the principle characters were well rounded and played an interesting dance, but I do rather question the authenticity of the historical background. The historical elements were too few and there details too often repeated, rather than explored, to give me any real confidence in the author's historical re...

This is a study of a mix of characters in life's emotional pressure-cooker, the boiling mass of hormones, memories, fears and pains that make us all. We come to know the two main characters very well and to build convincing pictures of many of those around them. We see that we often become far more than we might expect, through the quagmire of interactions we experience with others. Even the meek may learn to kill. Sometimes, we eventually break away from the bonds of our past, to be relatively free agents, and sometimes the past eventually destroys us. This is a well written look into the emotional turmoil of a group of intimately and sometimes unavoidably knotted together lives. We actually get some way to actually feeling what it is like to be someone else, to be submerged into the books characters. One can ask little more from such a book. We have all experienced some of this and others have lived lives far closer to this particular emotional mix than we may allow ourse...

This is well written, though it needs another edit to cut out sentences that repeat rather more than advance the dialogue. The story leans towards the happy ending fairy-tale rather than harder fantasy, not that that is a fault. What it does mean is that this book is, in my middle-aged opinion, suited best to older children rather than young adults. However, I have no intention of putting of adult readers. King's Warrior has plenty of depth of story for mature readers that like well written tales that don't feel the need to more than imply the bestial. There is a sense of the allegorical, the fight between good and evil, which I see as putting this on a shelf next to C.S Lewis's rather than J:K. Rowling's books. I was asked to assess this book, completely independently of the author, and gave it a pass as a well conceived, well plotted, and artfully written book. So my reservations are minor. If the author takes the trouble to revisit and tighten the prose I will be o...

This book is written in a lively, energetic style that bounced me through the story. The narrator is Swanson's main character, one Jimmie Barlow. The voice feels to me, though I am fairly long-in-the-tooth, to be a very authentic male teenage/young adult one. Seeing as the author is both female, and of nearer my age than a teenager, I consider her character's words have been delivered with a great deal of aplomb and credibility. In places, I could hear my own young adult children talking. To the outside world, Jimmie appears to have the profile of a classic off-the-rails young man. He is hooked on on-line gaming, dubious money-making enterprises, is often absent from school in which he has few friends, he associates with life's tragic and criminal cases, and he is not beyond being the part of almost any mischief. Nearly everyone underestimates and/or believes the worst of Jimmie. The plot has violent and tragic tones, an often irreverent humour, sad and dysfunctio...

Dixiane Hallaj is a particular good writer of social/historically placed, politically pointed, drama, both in her creative fiction and as in this case in the writing of Biography augmented with fictional reality. In fact, most biographies contain some invented content, and/or augmented interpretation. There are going to be gaps to fill in any knowledge that reports anything deeper than the bare historic/factual bones. Hallaj writes, very-broadly speaking, women’s literature, in that central female figures and through them family, are her bread and butter. That shouldn’t deter any but the most misogynistic of male readers. There is plenty of the gritty content and adventure to balance the childcare and dressmaking. This is a lot on female, and male, sensitivities, but certainly very little sentimental. Lola had as psychologically tough a life as most male heroes, and survived an extraordinarily mixed bunch of husbands and other male figures. I may have lost count, but she had certain...

This is a very well written fiction story that adds interesting fuel to the debate between those that support the `rights' of the individual and those that put the rights of community ahead of those of the individuals. Should the individual be expected to suffer, even to risk life, for a common good? Should we all, ultimately, be conscript soldiers of society? The principle character is fascinating, complex, and totally credible. Whether she is actually a hero, a coward, or a genuine conscientious objector, each of us has to decide for ourselves. For me Kelsey was a mix of all three, just as most of us would probably be, depending on the degree and type of cultural indoctrination we had experienced. The only flaw of the plot was for me the over close relationships of all the principle characters in Kelsey vs The State. This tightness helped drive the intensity of the drama, but it all proved to strain my buy in to its plausibility. Wouldn't the prosecution have ripped t...

Lumière is a delightful book. I particularly loved the start: the steam elephant. I hope he reappears in future stories. There are only two factors making this book less brilliant than its potential. Firstly, there are far too many deadly situations from which Eyelet `only just' escapes. She ran just fast enough too often, for my liking. The second was the generally over frantic pacing of events in the story, which left me feeling that I really didn't have enough opportunity to deeply explore this strange landscape. My view is that a page turning book need not be conducted at frenetic speed from cover to cover. I was held enough by the quality of both the writing and the story to have read a much longer book. I accept that possibly even most modern readers don't share my opinion. Me though, I wanted to know so much more about Eyelet's world. More words, more words! I liked the mix of reminders I got from authors like Mervyn Peake, L.Frank Baum and Ray Bradbury. I'...