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Recent Reviews
Cecelia Ahern
Positive Bookreporter Ahern is a clever, whimsical fabulist, and the roar of each tale resounds in the moral. Her bold and unapologetic style is augmented by the dream-like, exaggerated quality of these chimerical stories ... Ahern often opines her political views with a megaphone. While this blunt approach is in accordance with the cautionary epimythia of traditional fables, the technique may come across as a bit too didactic to some readers, and the blaring political messages risk eclipsing the artistry of these tales ... has its hits and misses. In Ahern’s more successful pieces, her prose flexes its muscles with vim and vigor, and this sinewy, bizarre compilation is an entertaining commentary on the shapeshifting social mores of our times.
Craig Russell
Positive Book Reporter With some film noir-esque scenes of Kapitán Smolák chain smoking during a stakeout and policemen chasing a fugitive down foggy cobbled streets, it\'s no wonder that film rights have been preempted by Columbia Pictures. In this American debut, former police officer and Scottish author Craig Russell weaves a complex, intriguing and intellectually stimulating thriller, exploring criminal psychology through the kaleidoscopic lens of Jungian archetypes and Slavic mythology. The threads of this intricately woven plot intersect in fascinating ways ... As the tension in this book intensifies, the political tempest and collective madness of Nazi Germany looms in the background and infiltrates the asylum through two of the doctors, who wear Sudetendeutsche Partei pins. Any of the complex characters populating the novel could potentially be Leather Apron, and the forked tail of The Devil Aspect has a satisfying and brilliant twist at the end, tempting readers to return to the beginning.
Leila Slimani Trans. by Sam Taylor
Positive Bookreporter \"With pornographic passages evocative of the poetic erotica of Anaïs Nin, Slimani gives voyeuristic glimpses into Adèle\'s sexual exploits in terse and lurid prose ... Adèle is a complex and formidable exploration of female sexuality ... Adèle is just as much of an enigma to the reader as she is to her lovers, family and friends.\
Susan Bernhard
Positive Bookreporter \"Debut author Susan Bernhard doesn’t drown the reader in Wes’ guilt and self-loathing over his mother’s death, nor the depression he feels over being abandoned by his father. She has a knack for capturing the duplicity of his treacherous emotions, as he dips into denial and hope simultaneously like a jar of honey tainted with flies ... While this narrative may be waterlogged with despair at times, both in Wes’ own experiences and in the sordid secrets of his family, there are enough infusions of hope to keep Wes, and the reader, moving forward.\
Wendy Webb
Positive Bookreporter Wendy Webb’s omniscient narration gives the sensation of reading a fairy tale in a rocking chair beside the fireplace ... The lake itself is a prominent supernatural presence in the novel, with a numinous fog that rises from the waters, and a mysterious horned creature that sings, based on Michi Peshu, an underwater divinity of Lake Superior legend ... Utilizing the watery symbolism of amniotic fluid, the lake and the subconscious, Webb explores the relationship between the enigmatic power of women’s intuition and the cycles of nature and the moon. Daughters of the Lake is an alchemical blend of romance, intrigue, ancestry and the supernatural. While the murderer’s unveiling at the end of the novel may be predictable to some readers, diving into this gothic mystery will still be a pleasure.