Blonde Bombshell and The Fields of Fortune Reviews - Guest

Thanks to our Guest Star Michael for contributing the following reviews. He's becoming a regular book-reviewing wizard!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL

TOM HOLT

Like other Tom Holt books, you either get the humour or you don’t! Having read “May Contain Traces of Magic” by the same author, I was looking forward to another rather zany novel. The Ostar, who we later find out are actually intelligent dogs, have sent an equally intelligent bomb to blow Earth to smithereens, all because us humans are being very noisy. The bomb gets cold feet about the whole blowing oneself up bit and decides to send a probe down to Earth to see if it can find out why the natives are making so much noise and whether the defences are up to saving Earth from an alien invasion and whether it really can get away with a nice peaceful life.

So, lots of role reversal and personification of normally inanimate objects, an outsider’s rather skewed view of humans and a race against time to save the Earth.

9/10

THE FIELDS OF FORTUNE

JESSICA STIRLING

I’m getting quite into period fiction, especially books set in either Victorian or from the first half of the 20^th Century. However, this novel goes back a bit further to Scotland not long after the Jacobean Revolt (As an aside I’ve read John Wesley’s eye witness account of the panic caused in Newcastle by the advance of the Pretender and his army, I can’t really imagine how it would be to suddenly find an army on your doorstep!).

Anyway, Nicola Morrison and her sister Charlotte are the rather privileged daughters of John James Templeton, known as Lord Craigiehall and a senior judge in Edinburgh. Lord Craigiehall, I suppose like many of the landed gentry of the time, has plans to marry Nicola off to a much older other lord, in order to get access to land and mining rights. Nicola is having none of it, and runs away to her sister’s house in Edinburgh. There she meets Charlotte’s husband and his wayward brother, who is deep in gambling debts and with a supposedly valiant past in the American Civil War. Thus follows a tale of Nicola’s coming out into Edinburgh society, as her sister and her father expect, but this does not suit her and her preferences lie in a completely different direction. There’s a plot to bring about Lord Craigiehall’s downfall as well.

The author has put a lot of research into the lives of people of the period, and of Edinburghat that time, and this together with some strong characters makes a very good read. If you want something more working class than this book but set in the same sort of area but slightly later period, try The Hiring Fair, also by the same author and part of a trilogy.

8/10

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Books 04 & 05 - Blonde Bombshell and The Fields of Fortune

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

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Rich Girl, Poor Girl - Val Wood Review - GUEST

RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL
VAL WOOD

Thanks to our Guest Star Michael for contributing the following review. 

Set in Victorian England, this novel tells of two teenage girls, one from a well-to-do family, big house, servants, father in the Army, and the other the child of a single mum, living in slum housing typical of the time. Just before Christmas, each girl’s mother dies in childbirth, leaving Polly orphaned and Rosalie trying to manage a house full of servants, try to get a message to her father away in India, but both of them having to make the necessary arrangements whilst dealing with their loss.

One the same day, at either end of the same graveyard, their respective mothers are buried, Rosalie’s in style, Polly’s in a pauper’s grave.

As Rosalie gets organised, she advertises for a scullery maid, and Polly, finding out from a friend, takes the job. From then on, Rosalie and Polly develop a friendship well beyond their servant/lady positions and the book tells of their growing up, and where they go and who they ultimately meet.

This book is well researched, with good local knowledge and an interesting insight into the living conditions, relative status and indeed attitudes of the mid-Victorian era. It does make you realise how much attitudes have changed, especially in men’s view of women, and it is rare nowadays to come across people who are in domestic service to the aristocracy. And there’s the obligatory happy ending!

8/10

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Read more reviews here!

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

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Legends of Shannara - Terry Brooks - GUEST

LEGENDS OF SHANNARA - 
BEARERS OF THE BLACK STAFF
TERRY BROOKS

Thanks to our Guest Star Michael for contributing the following review. 

Five hundred years after the disintegration of society and the destruction created in the battle between the Word and the Void, Panterra Qu and Prue Liss are training as Trackers in a valley sealed off by magic from the world outside. However, the passage of time has weakened the magic shield that protects the valley, and Sider Ament, otherwise known as the Gray Man, knows this. Sider is the last of a long line of Knights of the Word, charged with protecting the Word and serving the Lady, and ensuring that the Void does not get a foothold.

Now, over the centuries, the races that were brought to survival in the valley have become more insular, the Elves keep apart from the Lizards, who in turn keep apart from Man. Together with Sider Ament, Prue and Panterra set about finding the Devil who has breached the magic that seals the valley and has encouraged Trolls and other mutants to mass outside the valley with a view to taking it over by force.

Phyrne, an Elven Princess shares a secret with her grandma, that of the Elfstones, ancient stones of magic. These, along with Sider’s black staff, passed down to him through the long line of servants of the Word, are the only weapons that can destroy the devil and defend again the forces which threaten to destroy the last vestiges of humanity, the Elves and all who live in the valley.

Terry Brooks’ books are extremely addictive and this book, together with the sequel Measure of the Magic, fit between the Word and the Void series, which tells of the fall of humanity and the destruction of the Great Wars, and the original Shannara series – the tales of the Four Lands and the last of the Druids.

I really do have to give the whole Terry Brooks series 10/10, they are some of my favourite books, really quite difficult to put down and he weaves a number of strands throughout the books and, unlike some post apocalyptic novels (On the Beach – Nevil Shute, for instance) does give hope for the future.

10/10

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Visit Michael's Blog HERE

Read more reviews here!

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

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Guest Stars - Table of Contents

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Full - Table of Contents
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Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole - GUEST

DARK TOWER 01 - 
THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE
STEPHEN KING

Stephen King’s first Dark Tower novel – The Gunslinger - was published a long time before the rest of the series, which follows the quest of the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his companions along the Path of the Beam to find the Dark Tower.

These books are set in a post-apocalyptic world where there is a slow decline into chaos, technology is slowly decaying and failing, fierce mutant creatures abound and magic is becoming a potent force. This book is a kind of apocrypha to the series which fills in some of the history of Roland whilst he and his companions shelter from the Starkblast, a freak once-in-a-generation storm which strips the landscape bare. 

The first part deals with the companions realising they are in danger by working out why their intelligent animal companion Oy (a Billie Bumbler or Throcken) keeps pointing himself towards a certain direction and sniffing the air. As they shelter from the Starkblast, Roland tells the tale of one of his first missions as a Gunslinger, to a town where a mutant shape shifter is killing townsfolk, in order to apprehend, or kill, this evil being. 

Within this tale, a third tale is told by the much younger Roland to a boy that he has found hiding from the mutant, of a far earlier historical time where a son loses his father, tries to protect his mother against harm from his father’s brother, and in his quest to find out his father’s fate is protected by the magic of Maerlyn against the Starkblast and his nasty uncle.

So, a tale within a tale within a tale, which might be confusing if it wasn’t told by a master storyteller. It could be read on its own, but some understanding of the Dark Tower series is probably necessary to get the full appreciation of this book.

Score

9/10

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Visit Michael's Blog HERE

Read more reviews here!

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

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Guest Stars - Table of Contents

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Full - Table of Contents
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Wighill Book Exchange!

A friend of mine emailed me a little while ago about a little book swap shop with a difference that he located in Wighill. 

"We went for a cycle ride this morning 

and visited Wighill on the way, where 

- inside an old phone box - 

they have a swap shop for books!"

Credit to Michael

Credit to Michael

What a wonderful way to share books!

Have you spotted any weird and wonderful book distribution ideas near you?

Do take a picture and share it with us!

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Visit Michael's Blog HERE

Read more reviews here!

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

* * * * *

Guest Stars - Table of Contents

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Full - Table of Contents
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*Obviously with full credits and so on!