Monthly Archives: December 2019

A House of Ghosts

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A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan

Book of the Week: 15 December 2019

Cover illustration by Ed Bettison. Design by Nick Stearn.

Ghost stories are a traditional part of Christmas, so here is the promisingly-entitled A House of Ghosts. I will have to rely on reviews for assurances of its spookiness as my reading time has been taken up by getting through the shortlist for the recently launched Warwickshire Secondary School Book Award.

Finalist for the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction Book of the Year, a Classic Cozy Big-House Mystery Haunted by the Specters of World War One—For Readers of Agatha Christie and Simone St. James

Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives. At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons, both of whom died at the front.

Among the guests, two have been secretly dispatched from the intelligence service: Kate Cartwright, a friend of the family who lost her beloved brother at the Somme and who, in the realm of the spiritual, has her own special gift; and the mysterious Captain Donovan, recently returned from Europe. Top secret plans for weapons developed by Lord Highmount’s company have turned up in Berlin, and there is reason to believe enemy spies will be in attendance. As the guests arrive, it becomes clear that each has something they would rather keep hidden. Then, when a storm descends, they find themselves trapped on the island. Soon one of their number will die. For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one.

Description from Google Books (Accessed: 15 December 2019).

Warwickshire Books Awards

The winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award was announced last week as The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton.

We have just started on the Warwickshire Secondary School Book Award process for 2020 with a group of Year 7 judges reading these shortlisted books:

The books are being kept aside for the judging team to read at present, but if you like the sound of some of them, try my suggestions for books with similar themes here

Everything All At Once

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Everything All At Once by Steven Camden

Book of the Week: 8 December 2019

‘What’s it about then?

Well,

It’s about the tapestry of moments, woven of a thousand threads.

Different versions of the world swirling inside a thousand heads.

We go from the biggest to the smallest, dropped off, left to fend,

in the secondary school jungle jumbled enemies, new friends.’

This is Steven Camden’s prologue to his poetry book that looks inside the heads of unnamed students and teachers and their experiences in school, from starting out to the day of leaving. Its mix of funny, anxious and regretful is always insightful and identifiable.

 

 

Flood World

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Flood World by Tom Huddleston

Book of the Week: 1 December 2019

Cover by Manuel Sumberac
Inside map by Jensine Eckwall

It is some time in the future, when rising floodwaters have turned London into a nightmare version of Venice. There is a walled central district protecting the rich and powerful and a Victorian-style slum called The Shanties, where the poor live in the upper floors of submerged high-rise blocks. Fifteen-year old Kara, and the much younger Joe, scratch a living by working for Colpeper, a minor criminal and Fagin-like character. Joe dives into the polluted sea to search for anything that Copper’s clients say they will pay money for. There is an evocative scene early on in the book where Joe explores an underwater world of churches, supermarkets and cinemas, wondering what the Earth must once have been like.

Joe and Kara’s dreams of escaping the hunger and hard work of the Shanties is disrupted by a fatal accident, where a desperate young man on a jet ski avoids hurting Joe and dies himself. He leaves Joe with some information, a lasting impression and a world of trouble. He and Kara are now wanted by everyone from law enforcement to local gangsters and eco-pirates. Fortunately, Joe is inventive and sparky and Kara could give Katniss Everdeen a run for her money.

Expect an action-filled plot and some memorable characters, both good and bad, in this story set in a beautifully-described, watery world.