‘There’s a naked boy on the playing fields.’ This is Gillian’s introduction to her Romeo; together, they form the star-crossed lovers in ‘Cold Fire’, a dramatic YA novel which not only revisits Shakespeare’s famous lovers, but introduces us to Shakespeare himself… Today I am privileged to have James Hartley visiting BuriedUnderBooks to discuss his second […]
Having loved Anne Rice’s vampire series when I was in my late teens, I was very excited to be offered a copy of her new novel, ‘The Mummy’. When it arrived through the post, I was startled to see that the book was actually co-authored by Anne Rice and her son, Christopher Rice. Having now […]
“There were no fines, but the negative feedback in SleepAdvisor could impact upon the following year’s popularity – and rates.” The wonderfully inventive sci-fi / fantasy / literary / comic genius Jasper Fforde is back with a standalone novel introducing the Winter Consul Service and Charlie Worthing: novice Consul, ethical thinker and reluctant dreamer… What’s […]
‘Right, I thought, just because you’ve gone mad doesn’t mean you should stop acting like a policeman.’ And that’s the beauty of this book in a nutshell: even when he’s faced with feuding River Gods and Goddesses, and vicious revenant ghosts apparently obsessed with puppet shows, freshly minted constable Peter Grant is ready to employ […]
I like to watch TV series in installments: ideally no more than one episode a night so I can savour each one, digesting the ideas and developments before moving on to the next. Gary A. Braunbeck’s collection of short stories requires the same approach. There are 40 stories in total but to gorge yourself on […]
Jasper Fforde: pioneering fictioneer. I’m not usually a fan of fantasy fiction. In fact, I actively avoid it, moving on as soon as I spot words like ‘magic’, ‘curse’ or ‘dragon’ in book descriptions and reviews. The one exception is Jasper Fforde, whose genuinely distinctive styling of comedy, fantasy, literary mash-up, satire and sci-fi is […]
I wasn’t initially convinced by ‘The Book of Lost Things’. An adult fairytale? Yes, possibly, if kept fairly short and written by someone like Angela Carter. But 502 pages of adult fairytale? At least it wasn’t recommended by Richard and Judy, which most of the books I read for my fiction book group seem to […]