THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL by Stephen Collins

THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL Stephen Collins (www.stephencollinsillustration.com) Jonathan Cape (www.randomhouse.co.uk/…/jonathan-cape) £16.99 The island of Here is a place where order reigns supreme. ‘Tidy’ is the watchword, and everything follows pre-defined patterns, and no-one stands out. Across the sea is There, the complete opposite to Here, a place where chaos rules and nothing is […]

DOCTOR WHO at 50: 11 DOCTORS 11 STORIES

11 DOCTORS 11 STORIES Eoin Colfer (www.eoincolfer.com) Michael Scott (www.dillonscott.com) Marcus Sedgwick (www.marcussedgwick.com) Philip Reeve (www.philip-reeve.com) Patrick Ness (www.patrickness.com) Richelle Mead (www.richellemead.com) Malorie Blackman (www.malorieblackman.co.uk) Alex Scarrow (www.scarrow.co.uk) Charlie Higson (www.charliehigson.co.uk) Derek Landy (www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk) Neil Gaiman (www.neilgaiman.com) Puffin Books (www.puffinbooks.com) £12.99 On 23rd November 1963, the BBC introduced the Doctor to the world. In the […]

YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD by David Towsey

YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD David Towsey (davidtowsey.blogspot.co.uk) Jo Fletcher Books (www.jofletcherbooks.com) £20.00 Thomas McDermott has left his family, and his community in the small town of Barkley, and gone off to fight in a war in which he has no conviction. When Thomas returns home, he will be a much changed man – Thomas is dead, […]

GUEST POST: Questions and Answers by DAVID TOWSEY

Name: DAVID TOWSEY Author of: YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD (2013) On the web: davidtowsey.blogspot.co.uk On Twitter: @D_Towsey I’m very pleased to welcome David Towsey to Reader Dad, to celebrate the release of his debut novel, Your Brother’s Blood, the first book in his The Walkin’ series. My review of this excellent book will be live on […]

THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde

THE EYRE AFFAIR Jasper Fforde (www.jasperfforde.com) Hodder (www.hodder.co.uk) £7.99 The following review is the first in a series of reviews for the Hodderscape Review Project, a project that I’m very happy and proud to be a part of. Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, for anyone that has already read it, will seem the obvious choice […]

THE SHINING GIRLS by Lauren Beukes

THE SHINING GIRLS Lauren Beukes (laurenbeukes.com) HarperCollins (www.harpercollins.co.uk) £12.99 When Harper Curtis murders an old woman, he finds the key to a house to which he instinctively knows the way. In the bedroom of the house he finds the names of girls scratched on the walls next to mementoes and trophies, threads linking them together […]

Hospital Reading Round-up, or: A Letter of Apology

Dear Reader, I hope you will forgive this break from the usual straightforward literary(?) criticism for this personal note to explain the relative quiet at Reader Dad of late, and to apologise to authors, publishers, publicists and potential readers for the lack of reviews written and published on the site since mid-February. Anyone who follows […]

WE ARE HERE by Michael Marshall

WE ARE HERE Michael Marshall (www.michaelmarshallsmith.com) Orion Books (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £16.99 On a visit to New York to meet his publisher, David bumps into a man on the street – the sort of innocent collision that happens all the time on busy city pavements – who follows him back to Penn Station and confronts him. He […]

FORTRESS FRONTIER by Myke Cole

FORTRESS FRONTER (SHADOW OPS: Book Two) Myke Cole (mykecole.com) Headline (www.headline.co.uk) £7.99 Colonel Alan Bookbinder, a Pentagon-based paper-pusher, wakes from a nightmare to the feeling that he is drowning. Before the day is out, it is clear that Colonel Bookbinder has come up Latent, though he has not yet Manifested any particular powers. Surrendering himself […]

GUEST POST: Falling Between the Genre Cracks by MYKE COLE

Name: MYKE COLE Author of: CONTROL POINT (SHADOW OPS 1) (2012) FORTRESS FRONTIER (SHADOW OPS 2) (2013) On the web: mykecole.com On Twitter: @MykeCole To celebrate the publication of his second novel, and the second book in his Shadow Ops series, Fortress Frontier, I am very pleased to welcome Myke Cole back to Reader […]