I am a fantasy and science-fiction author with a soft spot for books cut with a sharp sense of humour, impaled on the absurd, or littered with the brutal slaughter of conventions and tropes. I love crisp one-liners and surreal worlds, awkward anti-heroes, and kick-ass heroines who bring their own ruthless horde to the fight. If I were to pick out one feature of a book, film, or television show that really catches my attention it would be “Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.”
“Everyone has their demons, but I buy mine wholesale…” Paul Moore, shopkeeper, Master of the Dark Arts, and demonic broker, has just met the hottest witch to ever try to kill him.
Paul thought he was the best, until the demons of the Babylonian Triad launch a turf war, pitting him against rival demons, competing traders, an explosive spice, and ruthless church factions... Paul knows that being a Master of the Dark Arts involves sacrifice, but really doesn't want to be the one dragged to the altar in his fight through life, death, demons, and trying to survive a first date. It's not the end of the world, just the start of a new corner of hell, in a mad, fast-paced adventure full of oddball characters and very dark humour.
Good Omens hit me in stages. The first stage was that it’s fun and humorous, and then stage two was the build-up of crisp satire and merciless poking fun at people who deserve it, and then it got me with the delicious blend of perfectly drawn stereotype characters that have a life all of their own. I loved the jokes, the deceptively cheerful dark humour, the jaundiced view of bureaucracies and their inherent careless momentum. The book is a grand, defiant raised finger masquerading as a mild-mannered urban (OK, rural) fantasy.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE AMAZON PRIME/BBC SERIES STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN, JON HAMM AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
'Ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian
What if, for once, the predictions are right, and the Apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?
It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon, now find themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse.
Grunts is one of my ultimate laugh-out-loud books, followed by a look round to make sure there’s no one nearby I have to explain it to. It’s a tale of the orcs after the final battle between good and evil, out of a job and in the tricky position of being on the losing side. Grunts delights in turning every fantasy trope on its head, cracking jokes I certainly wouldn’t want to explain to my mother, and at every step rooting for undeniable bad guys who were just there to do the job of fighting for the Dark Lord.
Oh, and the orcs are cursed with a cache of weapons from our world that is turning them into US Marines. I don’t know why that makes it so much funnier, but it does.
Don’t embarrass yourself - remember to pee before you start reading.
A fantasy tale, with black humour, by the author of "Rats and Gargoyles" and "The Architecture of Desire". The usual Last Battle of Good against Evil is about to begin. The forces of Light are outnumbered, full of headstrong heroes devoid of tactics - but the Light's still going to win.
The Eyre Affair introduces a world subtly more insane than ours. The first time I met it I took in the alternate Britain where the Crimean war is still going on after seventy years, cheese is illegal, and there’s a special police department to tackle fights between opposing Shakespeare and Bacon fans, that was enough absurdity to draw me in. After that it just took me down the helter-skelter and into the “bookworld” of Jane Eyre, where the characters stand ready to perform the moment a reader starts reading. It is Alice in Wonderland with the straightjacket off and not a syringe of sedative in sight.
The Eyre Affair hits all of my buttons at once, does a little jig, and then dares me to follow the next piece of wild and surreal invention to its extreme conclusion.
Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend
Jasper Fforde's beloved New York Times bestselling novel introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England-from the author of The Constant Rabbit
Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it's a bibliophile's dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic…
I picked this up, on a recommendation, without any particular expectation, and by the time I’d reached the first murder, presented through the snarky narration, I was hooked. As a premise, it sounds quite ordinary, Peter Grant is a young police officer about to be drawn in to the tiny department that looks after all things magical, but Ben Aaronovitch invited me into a world of surprises, invention, and thrills. I have worked for large companies and for the Civil Service, so the sharp observations of office politics and police “management speak” and its perception by the frontline officers felt very familiar. Of course I also feel entirely at home in his world of Newtonian magic, psychotic puppets, and squabbling river goddesses.
Book 1 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch.
My name is Peter Grant, and I used to be a probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the Filth.
My story really begins when I tried to take a witness statement from a man who was already dead...
Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. After taking a statement from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost, Peter comes…
How could I not love a book that sets its tone with “My name is Bond, Shaman Bond”?
Bond, aka Eddie Drood, has all the latest magical gadgets to help suppress the forces of magical mayhem on behalf of the ancient and powerful Drood family (and yes there’s a pun there on Druid). This is what James Bond would have been if Ian Fleming had gone easy on the Martinis and tried a few magic mushrooms instead.
The book, and in fact the whole series, is inventive, witty, and in places outright insane, with every book title a parody of a Bond book or film.
(Also, Mr Green is a very nice man – we met him once over pizza at EasterCon several decades ago.)
New York Times bestselling author Simon Green introduces a new kind of hero, one who fights the good fight against some very old foes in the first novel in the Secret Histories series.
The name’s Bond. Shaman Bond. Actually, that's just his cover. His real name is Eddie Drood, but when your job includes a license to kick supernatural arse on a regular basis, you find your laughs where you can.
For centuries, his family has been the secret guardian of Humanity, all that stands between all of you and all of the really nasty things that go bump in…
Looking for clean romantic suspense with spiritual undertones?
Look no further than the Acts of Valor series by Rebecca Hartt. With thousands of reviews and 4.7-5.0 stars per book, this 6-book series is a must-read for readers searching for memorable, well-told stories by an award-winning author.
A dead man stands on her doorstep.
When the Navy wrote off her MIA husband as dead, Eden came to terms with being a widow. But now, her Navy SEAL husband is staring her in the face. Eden knows she should be over-the-moon, but she isn’t.
Diagnosed with PTSD and amnesia, Navy SEAL Jonah Mills has no recollection of their fractured marriage, no memory of Eden nor her fourteen-year-old daughter. Still, he feels a connection to both.
Unfit for active duty and assigned to therapy, Jonah knows he has work to do and relies on God, who sustained him during captivity, to heal his mind, body, and hopefully his family.
But as the memories lurking in his wife's haunted eyes and behind his daughter's uncertain smile begin to return to him, Jonah makes another discovery. There is treachery in the highest ranks of his Team, treachery that not only threatens him but places his new-found family in its crosshairs.
Presumed Dead, Navy SEAL Returns Without Memory of His Ordeal in the Christian Romantic Suspense, Returning to Eden, by Rebecca Hartt
-- Present Day, Virginia Beach, Virginia --
A dead man stands at Eden Mills' door.
Declared MIA a year prior, the Navy wrote him off as dead. Now, Eden's husband, Navy SEAL Jonah Mills has returned after three years to disrupt her tranquility. Diagnosed with PTSD and amnesia, he has no recollection of their marriage or their fourteen-year-old step-daughter. Still, Eden accepts her obligation to nurse Jonah back to health while secretly longing to regain her freedom, despite the…
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