Take four old men and a deep dark hidden secret and you get Ghost Story. I’ve heard a lot about this story over the years but didn’t really have a chance to read it until I did a group read with my friends in the LOHF. As with most literary horror the group was spilt. With those thinking the story was boring and others thinking it was great. What camp do you think I was in?

Synopsis: Four friends with a secret start to die off in a small town.

What I liked: I loved this story. It sucked me in from the first page. I wanted to know more about the chowder society and it’s members. Straub makes these central characters engaging and three dimensional. You do care about what happens to these characters. The story is also multi-layered. So each characters story is layered with another. It is…

Today is a day I’ve been waiting for. It’s the release day for A Discovery of Witches, a tv series on Sky and Now tv based on my favourite books by Deborah Harkness. I am obssessed with these books. I have all of them, including a book about the World of All Souls. I’ve read them a few times, once with the facebook group as part of the annual real time read. My books are still in boxes so I’ve had to borrow some goggle images:

I’ve mentioned them before and will definitely be going on about them (sorry Twitter followers) again. It’s an amazing unique fantasy world with characters you will love, a world you will not want to leave. It begins with Diana finding a lost manuscript in the Bodleian library which everyone wants, she is pulled back into the magical world she didn’t want to be a…

I requested this book on impulse from Netgalley, I actually forgot I’d requested it at the end of last year- it was a crazy time! And I was getting emails reminding me about it, that’s never happened before. The idea and the cover caught my attention, it’s evocative and made me wonder what it was all about. I shouldn’t have waited so long to read it…

This book is due to be released on January 24th

Description from Netgalley:

Five toasts. Five people. One lifetime.

I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’

At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual – though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.

Over the course…

I have been re-reading His Excellency Eugène Rougon (Son Excellence Eugène Rougon) because I have a lovely new OUP edition, translated by Brian Nelson.  I’m not going to review the novel again because I’ve already reviewed the Vizetelly translation as part of my Zola Project to read the entire Rougon-Marquet series, but I do want to comment about why it’s so much more enjoyable to read a new edition than a freebie from Project Gutenberg.

I admire the whole concept of Project Gutenberg, and I’ve read plenty of their titles that I couldn’t otherwise source.   The wonderful team of volunteers at PG have saved many titles from oblivion, and these titles are free, which makes them accessible to all budgets. But there are limitations with some titles, and the Vizetelly translations of Zola’s novels are particularly problematic…

I call them Vizetelly translations, but actually, Vizetelly was the publisher and although Brian…

I spent most of yesterday (17th)  formatting the new and improved ‘Prelude’ in accordance with Smashwords Style Guide.

It wasn’t as bad as I feared. I think a great deal of the ‘shock and horror’ about ‘the meatgrinder’ is based on fear of a steep learning curve, and a certain amount of preciousness about one’s own formatting.

The steep learning curve is indeed steep if you’ve never formatted using ‘styles’, (in Microsoft Word) which I never have, but now that I know about ’em, they’re my new best friends!

And the formatting – well, us writerly types do tend to cling to what we’re familiar with and like to use, with a grip of Adamantium. (think Wolverine’sclaws) Smashwords formatting is basically my-way-or-the-highway, and the good news is, I was able to duplicate all the formatting quirks I’d evolved as I wrote, using…

The Holler is surrounded by thousands of empty acres.

It has many oak groves, and permanent and seasonal creeks running through it.

900 of these acres are set aside as a permanent nature preserve, and many more 1000’s of acres are still free from human development.

There are no hiking trails or public access, but we live adjacent to the preserve and hike it several times a week.

The Holler was first settled in the 1890’s and consisted of 2,700 acres. It was a working ranch for much of its history. Crumbling fences and old ranch dirt roads remain. We hike the dirt roads, and game trails, which are everywhere.

This is the lower pasture below our house, and this is where we access the preserve.

Since people are not here, The Holler is full of wildlife and has an entirely different feel from hiking in parks that people frequent…