The Book Plank

The Death House by Sarah Pinborough Toby's life was perfectly normal... until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium. No one returns from the sanatorium. Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes. Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts. I always keep a close eye on books that are published but somehow The Death House escaped my attention until a mysterious package popped up in the post... a package in brown paper with a key tied around it a...

Beauty by Sarah Pinborough, Tales of the Kingdom #3 BEAUTY is a beautifully illustrated re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty story which takes all the elements of the classic fairytale that we love (the handsome prince, the ancient curse, the sleeping girl and, of course, the haunting castle) and puts a modern spin on the characters, their motives and their desires. It's fun, contemporary, sexy, and perfect for fans of ONCE UPON A TIME, GRIMM, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and more. I have heard a lot of positive news about Sarah Pinborough's Tales of the Kingdom but haven't had the chance to pick up one of the stories. I have, however read Mayhem and Murder from Sarah Pinborough and with those books she really proved her worth. Managing both to scare the hell out of me and intrigue me to the fullest. So when the opportunity presented itself to review the third story in the Tales of the Kingdom, Beauty , I readily jumped to the occasion to read it. Though it is a fai...

Murder by Sarah Pinbourough, Mayhem #2  Dr. Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from the event of the previous year when Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London - and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow. Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible. But now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames... and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy. One of the first titles that I received for reviewing last year from Jo Fletcher was Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough. Before this I had read a few detectives, most of them Sherlock Holmes, I find the detective books set in victorian London a real treat to read. But when I picked up Mayhem I was in for quite a surprise (meaning it in a very positive way!), the type of story that Sarah Pinborough managed to write was dark, darker than your average detective story. This along with the elegant an...

Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough A new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have dubbed him ‘the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes. The victims are women too, but their dismembered bodies, wrapped in rags and tied up with string, are pulled out of the Thames – and the heads are missing. The murderer likes to keep them. Mayhem is the latest book of Sarah Pinborough who has received numerous of literary awards like the 2009 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story and the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella. She has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Awards, Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards for her short fiction, novellas and other books. Sarah Pinborough mainly writes horror and thrillers and YA books. I have been trying to diversify my reading lately by verging into other genres. We all known the famous Sherlock Holmes, these types of stories,...