by Louise Jensen ‘That was when she saw a glint of silver. A sharp point pressed against her neck. Instantly the bottom fell out of her world, her body slackened. She had to stay alive for her sisters.’The Stolen Sisters (2020) is the sixth of Louise Jensen’s psychological thrillers. It follows the same structure that …
Author: Andrew G Lockhart
My name is Andrew Lockhart and I grew up in Coatbridge, Scotland. I studied at Glasgow University. After spending three decades in planning, statistics and international sales and marketing, I am now an author, family historian and owner of Magda Green Books. Apart from writing (and reading great books) and blogging, my other interests are science, music of all sorts, and traveling the world.
Jane Eyre meets Wuthering Heights
Mrs England by Stacey Halls A Review '.... Mr England was in high spirits. He'd played two songs on the upright piano and now sat on the stool smoking. Cigar cuttings littered the carpet. His mood was infectious; the children cheered and ran about, and Charley clapped on the rug.' Stacey Halls's first novel The …
Tomb of Sand
by Geetanjali Shree translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell ‘What is a border? It’s something that surrounds an existence, it is a person’s perimeter. No matter how large, no matter how small.’ Tomb of Sand, which won this year’s International Booker Prize, is about borders - and about crows. Crows, I hear some readers …
Tolkien and the Future of Epic Fantasy
by Andrew G Lockhart ‘The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.’ [HG Wells] The movie industry occasionally trivialises and mangles great works of literature in order to bring them to the screen. We might cite, for example, various adaptations …
Strange Affair at a Lighthouse
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex Review 'So ghostly in the cold sunlightIt seemed, that we were struck the whileWith wonder all too dread for words.And, as into the tiny creekWe stole beneath the hanging crag,We saw three queer, black, ugly birds—Too big, by far, in my belief,For guillemot or shag—Like seamen sitting bolt-uprightUpon a half-tide …
Gems of Fantasy
The Illustrated Man By Ray Bradbury ‘Sixteen illustrations, sixteen tales. I counted them one by one. Primarily my eyes focussed upon a scene, a large house with two people in it. I saw a flight of vultures on a blazing flesh sky, I saw yellow lions, and I heard voices.’ Ray Bradbury was one of …
The Heart of the Robot
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro A Review 'Josie came hurrying to me. She put her arms round me and held me. When I gazed over the child's head, I saw Manager smiling happily and the Mother, her face drawn and serious, looking down to search in her shoulder bag.' Klara, the eponymous narrator …
'Kill them all; God will know his own.'
Labyrinth
by Kate Mosse
A Review
History attributes those chilling words of the title to Arnaud Amaury, the papal legate who led the massacre at Beziers in 1209 CE.
Whilst the records tell that the French Crusader army spared no one, the real targets of Catholic hatred were the Cathars, a pacifist and gnostic Christian sect. After occupying Beziers, the French moved on to Carcassonne, headquarters of Viscount Trencavel, prince of Languedoc, who was forced to surrender in August of the same year. The last stronghold of the Cathars, Montségur, was besieged in 1244, when the Crusaders burned 200 of the inhabitants who refused to renounce their beliefs.
Labyrinth tells the story of the so-called Albigensian Crusade, mostly through the eyes of Alais, a young woman, daughter of one of Trencavel’s aides, Bertrand Pelletier. Kate Mosse’s research is meticulous. Her detailed descriptions of the land, its people and…
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BILLY BOY
Caught Between the Orange and the Green by Joyce Milne D'Auria ‘Maggie’s eye fixed on the boy. She smiled and felt drawn to the cot’s side. The child had red-gold hair down to his collar and piercing blue eyes. He raised his arms to be picked up ....’ Billy Boy is an historical coming-of-age novel …
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