The Book Plank

Alice isn’t having the best of days: she got rained on, missed her bus, was late for work. When two angels arrive, claiming her life so far is a lie, it turns epic, grand scale worse. The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating; an age-old balance is tipping, and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. The angels must act to restore the balance – or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory – a disgraced angel with a drinking problem – Alice will learn the truth about her own history… And why the angels want to send her to Hell. What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding – and can she trust either side? Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn’t just Hell’s demons that Alice will have to defeat… Blood and Feathers is the first novel by Lou Morgan. It is, as you might have guessed from the synopsis, a book ...

The time is 1882. With the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral and the battle with the thing that used to be Johnny Ringo behind him (see The Buntline Special ), the consumptive Doc Holliday makes his way to Deadwood, Colorado, with Kate Elder, where he plans to spend the rest of his brief life, finally moving into the luxurious facility that specializes in his disease. But one night he gets a little too drunk – hardly a novelty for him – and loses everything he has at the gaming table. He realizes that he needs to replenish his bankroll, and quickly, so that he can live out his days in comfort under medical care. He considers his options and hits upon the one most likely to produce income in a hurry: he’ll use his skill as a shootist and turn bounty hunter. The biggest reward is for the death of the young, twenty-year-old desperado known as Billy the Kid. It’s clear from the odds the Kid has faced and beaten, his miraculous escape from prison, and his friendship with the Indian tribes o...

Donnie Elder never imagined himself in the delivery business. But he’s been out of work and his mother is calling twice a day, so he’ll try anything. On his first day at work, Donnie gets robbed at gunpoint, and his boss has a heart attack. Now Donnie is running Arcane Transport all by himself, and problems are popping out of the woodwork.  The dispatcher is angry at him for an incident involving a spilled love potion. One of the drivers has been cursed.  And something is making a noise in the Lost and Found. Hazardous Goods is the debut novel written by John A Mackie and the first in the Arcane Transport series. When I read about this book in the submissions box it really caught my attention. The idea behind the book really appealed to me and showed some daring and a new take on a urban fantasy setting. The book features an transportation company “Arcane Transport” that is not your ordinary DHL or FedEx, but better, as it handles arcane and occult packages. And not just t...

Though one of the most powerful Deacons, Sorcha Faris has a tarnished reputation to overcome. She and her partner, Deacon Merrick Chambers, find themselves chasing down rumours of geists, but long for a return to real action. So they jump at the chance to escort a delegation sent to negotiate the terms of the Emperor’s engagement. Their destination: the exotic city of Orinthal. But a string of murders has Orinthal on edge, and Sorcha and Merrick are asked to investigate. Meanwhile the Emperor’s sister has unwittingly released a cruel and vengeful goddess, one who it bent on destroying her enemies, including the geistlord who resides inside the shapeshifting rival to the throne – Sorcha’s lover… Spectyr is the second book in the Books of the Order series written by Philippa Ballantine, of which  Geist  was the first. Spectyr takes place a few weeks after Geist. I was very pleased with the creativeness that Philippa Ballantine showed in Geist, and hoped to see this back in...

To catch a killer, Finn Maguire may have to become one…. Everything changed the day Finn found his father in a pool of blood, bludgeoned to death. His dull, dreary life is turned upside down as he becomes the prime suspect. How can he clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him? Facing danger at every turn, uncovering dark family secrets and braving the seedy London underworld, Finn is about to discover that only the people you trust can really hurt you…. Crusher, a debut novel written by Niall Leonard, was written in during NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. With Crusher, Niall Leonard goes along a different path than the majority of Young Adult fiction in that Crusher is a crime-thriller book. I was eager to read this since it was for me the first in this genre and now, having finished the book, I am actually quite divided in my opinion. On one hand I really liked the book but on some other fronts… I will try to explain as best I can b...

In 1880 women aren’t allowed to vote, much less dress up in a costume and fight crime… But twenty-year-old socialite Sarah Stanton still dreams of becoming a hero. Her opportunity arrives in tragedy when the leader of the Society of Paragons, New York’s greatest team of gentlemen adventurers, is murdered right before her eyes. To uncover the truth behind the assassination, Sarah joins forces with the amazing mechanical man known as The Automaton. Together they unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the Paragons that reveals the world of heroes and high-society is built on a crumbling foundation of greed and lies. When Sarah comes face to face with the megalomaniacal villain behind the murder, she must  discover if she has the courage to sacrifice her life of privilege and save her clockwork friend. The Falling Machine is the debut book written by Andrew P. Mayer and the first book in the Society of Steam series. I have always found steampunk a very interesting genre an...

In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human. The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow. Despite the sub-zero temperature of Samarkand, Cormac discovers signs of life: they are two ‘dracomen’, alien beasts contrived by an extra-galactic entity calling itself ‘Dragon’, which is a huge creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometre in diameter. Caught between the byzantine wiles of the Dragon and the lethal fury of Pelter, Cormac needs to skip very nimbly indeed to rescue the Samarkand project and protect his own life. My reading has not covered a lot of space science fiction, but this particular genre has always grab...

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what’s normal when you’re a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who’s becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn’t ready to let her go – especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary’s only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil – and also her father. To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings – and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valenti...

They live among us, abhorred, marginalised, despised. They are vampires, known politely as Sunless. The job of policing their community falls to the men and women of the Sunless Housing and Disclosure Executive – SHADE. Captain John Redlaw is London’s most feared and respected SHADE officer. But when the vampires start rioting in their ghettoes, and angry humans respond with violence of their own, even Redlaw may not be able to keep the peace. Especially when political forces are aligning to introduce a radical answer to the Sunless problem, one that will resolve the situation once and for all… I have heard a lot about the book of James Lovegrove, who is well known for his “Age of .. series” and have been wanting to read some of them for quite some time now. After finishing “Blood Oath” by Christopher Farnsworth I got a taste for that sort of vampire fiction. Where the romance is left out and the focus is on action. I found this in back in Redlaw but on top of that al...