An Extract From RULE BRITANNIA by Alec Marsh

RULE BRITANNIA Alec Marsh Accent Press (www.headline.co.uk) £8.99 CHAPTER ONE London, December 1936 A fog of tobacco all but concealed the strutting satyrs, winged cherubs, and nude dancing nymphs that adorned the low ceiling of the Granville Club’s Long Bar. The cloud floated over a noisy, bobbing, gas-lit landscape of gentlemen patrons, lounging […]

JAKOB’S COLOURS by Lindsay Hawdon

JAKOB’S COLOURS Lindsay Hawdon (lhawdon.co.uk) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £14.99 Jakob is barely eight-years old, and he is running for his life, searching for shelter in a world that has turned against him. It is 1944, and Jakob is a half-gypsy, the oldest child of a Romany father and an English mother, living in German-occupied […]

THE ABOMINABLE by Dan Simmons

THE ABOMINABLE Dan Simmons (dansimmons.com) Sphere (www.littlebrown.co.uk/Sphere) £18.99 George Leigh Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on the North-East Ridge of Mount Everest in early June 1924. A couple of days later, another Englishman, Lord Percival Bromley – not officially part of Mallory’s expedition – disappeared from the same location along with a […]

THE DEMI-MONDE: WINTER by Rod Rees

The Demi-Monde: Winter Rod Rees Quercus (www.quercusbooks.co.uk) £16.99 The Demi-Monde in the title of Rod Rees’ new novel – a novel that forms the first part of a quadrilogy – refers to an advanced virtual reality environment commissioned by the US government to simulate so-called “Asymmetric Warfare Environments” – places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where […]