The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

Summary: A fantasy novel about Kingdoms in decline, a powerful dark force on the rise and bent on revenge, and a mysterious sect of female sorceresses, working in secret to prevent the end of the world. The novel has political intrigue, legends, and dragons. Each Kingdom/Empire has its own narratives, culture and beliefs, and though …

The Serpent and The Eagle – Edward Rickford

Summary: This is a historical fiction novel, about the Spanish military campaign that destroyed the world of the Aztecs The novel, first in a trilogy, features the historic personalities, as well as numerous fictional ones. Hernan Cortes is there, on his ship Santa Maria de la Conception, as well as Montezuma in his glittering palace. …

The City Below The Cloud – T S Galindo

Summary: Set in a near-future climate change affected world, we follow the grim lives of Kalen and Sett, and their struggle to survive. There is law and order of a sort, mainly enforced by robots, but the teeming millions live right on the starvation line, life is less than cheap, and dead bodies can be …

Written in History – Simon Sebag Montefiore

Summary: Most of our modern history relies on the written word. Mostly we read the words of the victors, the burnished version of events. This anthology approaches history from an intriguing angle. Under titles ranging form “Courage” and “Discovery”, to “Folly” “War” and “Disaster”, the author reveals to us, in the words of those who …

The Space Between Time – Charlie Laidlaw

Summary: This is a story about childhood-into-adulthood, innocence lost, and a struggle to connect to tie together the threads of very different lives. Main Characters: Emma Rossini: The narrator, who details her life through the first-person. Paul Ross: Emma’s famous film-star actor father. Alberto Rossini: Emma’s brilliant, late-recognised physicist genius grandfather Caitlin Ross: Emma’s mother. …

Murder at the Columbarium – Emily Gallo

Summary: This is an interesting whodunnit story, which also has a number of other threads running through it. Main Characters: Jed Gibbons: Sixty-something African-American, curator of a Columbarium (a building where funeral urns are stored). Monica: His wife, positively diagnosed with HIV. Minor Characters: Dutch: Sixty-something grower of legal weed. Juniper: Dutch’s live-in companion, and …

The Kingmaker Contest – Troy Clem

Summary: Main Characters: Theo: An orphan brought up in the palace as a ward of the king. Nagima: She is a Sigander, the race that were the original natives of the land. They now are mainly forest dwellers, and Nagima is endowed with magical powers, which is not unexpected in her race. Tess: An urchin …

The Byzantine World War – Nick Holmes

Summary: An interesting and thought-provoking overview of that most enigmatic of empires, Byzantium. It deals specifically with the hundred years or so before and including the First Crusade, and makes a compelling argument to treat the desperate defence of Byzantium, and the prosecution of the Crusade as the real first world war. Main Characters: Romanus …

All The Broken People – Amy Rivers

Summary: Set in Georgia, Alice Bennett has taken on the role of caregiver to her recently-injured mother-in-law. Travelling from New York, she hopes she will find the space and time to deal with her marital pressures in this quiet picturesque town. Underneath the surface, however, simmering old feuds and resentments are finally boiling over, and …

The Second Life of Eddie Coyne – Louis Lowy

Urban fantasy, redemption of the human spirit, and what does it mean to have a second chance?