I’ve always delighted in stories where characters find they are not quite who they thought. I love double identities, triple identities, dual roles, and mysterious extra names…so long as they are written so I can believe in them. My own family tree is full of people using names or personas that weren’t quite what one might expect, and I follow the tradition in that although there is just one of me, physically speaking, I wear a great many hats. I have also loved hidden identity TV and film, such as Nowhere Man, and the first iteration of Total Recall. Many of my own books deal with identity, and it was difficult to pick just one!
Wizard Howl has a shocking reputation in Ingary. He rattles around the moors and the town of Market Chipping in a moving, smoking castle, and is rumoured to eat girls. Sophie is afraid of him, but after she tangles with the Witch of the Waste, and becomes an old woman, Howl seems far less scary. Howl, spoiler alert, is also Howell Jenkins, a Welshman, who has somehow got himself into Ingary where he carries on a flourishing second life. What with Calcifer the fire demon, who is also something else, this story is a glorious exploration of identity, real and assumed, and how this affects self-image and behaviour.
Now an animated movie from Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, the oscar-winning director of Spirited Away
In this beloved modern classic, young Sophie Hatter from the land of Ingary catches the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste and is put under a spell...
Deciding she has nothing more to lose, Sophie makes her way to the moving castle that hovers on the hills above her town, Market Chipping. But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl, whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the souls of young girls...
There Sophie meets Michael, Howl's apprentice, and Calcifer…
Laura Chant knows the world can wobble. She knows the boy at school, Sorry Carlisle, is a good deal more than he seems. When her little brother is lost to a vicious predator, Laura has to find a new self, or perhaps her own hidden depths, and face the changeover, which will remake her into another form. To do this, she has to place her trust in Sorry and his strange family, but she’ll do anything to save Jacko. Margaret Mahy is one of my favourite writers, and I think this book is her best. It is beautifully written in her inimitable style.
When her little brother seems to become possessed by an evil spirit, fourteen-year-old Laura seeks the help of the strangely compelling older boy at school who she is convinced has supernatural powers
Peter Grant, who narrates his own story, is a London copper. His dad is a down-on-his-luck musician, and his mum cleans for a living. Peter just gets on with it. One day…he sees a ghost. From that time on, Peter finds a whole new identity as a trainee wizard who is also a London copper. Now based at The Folly, with a weird dog, his boss Thomas Nightingale, and the weirder housekeeper, Peter discovers a whole new world in his familiar London. This dual identity; copper and wizard, matches Peter’s other duality as the son of a Caucasian father and a mother from Sierra Leone.
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…
Tori is a waitress whose firecracker temper loses as many jobs as her red-headed appeal gets her. Having blundered into the guild of the Crow and Hammer, she lands a new gig as a bartender, and three new and devoted friends in Aaron, Ezra, and Kai. Her dream job comes with a large helping of danger, and a built-in use-by date when the Powers that Be must inevitably discover Tori can’t legally work for the guild because she’s not a mythic. Or… can she possibly get a new classification? Strictly speaking, Tori’s new identity kicks in well after this book, but the series is great fun.
Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig.
It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview — to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right?
I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they… offered me the job?
It turns out this place isn't a bar. It's a guild. And…
Princess Theresa-Maria has wonderful breeding but no money and little future in the crumbling Austrian castle where she lives with ancient relations. Rebranding herself as Tessa, our heroine becomes a wardrobe mistress, working for nothing for an opera company almost as destitute as she is. Tessa is much happier until she falls in love with a wealthy man…a poor-boy-made-good, who hires the company to delight his fiancée. With much melodrama, an unlikely pot of yogurt, a drastic haircut, a metaphorical silk purse, and a button, this story wends its opulent way to a happy ending. The hero’s foster mother, Martha, crawling about the castle as a self-ordered penance for telling fibs is a particularly odd moment, but whether she is being Theresa-Maria or plain Tessa, our heroine is a wistful, starry-eyed delight.
Tessa is a beautiful, tiny, dark-eyed princess - who's given up her duties to follow her heart, working for nothing backstage at the Viennese opera. No one there knows who she really is, or that a fairytale castle is missing its princess, and Tessa is determined to keep it that way.
But secret lives can be complicated. When a wealthy, handsome Englishman discovers this bewitching urchin backstage,Tessa's two lives collide - and in escaping her inheritance, she finds her destiny. . .
Tamzin Herrick and her boyfriend Dequan had plans, but Tamzin was whisked away to yet another life where she was known as Rochelle Marlowe. Rochelle ran. With nowhere else to go, she accepted a lifeline from a stranger and walked through a cave where she took up a magical new life as Thomasine Forest.
And what about Dequan? Ten years on, his cousin raises the question: whatever happened to Tamzin all those years ago? Nelis and Xavier have no idea… Meanwhile, Thomasine is learning new skills and loving her new existence. Nevertheless, she is determined that one day she’ll return to Dequan and then she’ll be Tamzin again.
Writer, reader, editor, reviewer, publisher… those are all parts of me. With a lifetime of experience in the “words” industry, I have a pretty good handle on what makes a book not just good, but hot. I say this with the understanding that each reader brings their own histories to the reading experience, and what one person may like, another may not. Nonetheless, I offer you my professional and personal favorites in the mystery/thriller/suspense categories. It is my sincere hope that you find these books as addictive as I’d found them. Superb and clever writing, engaging characters, unpredictable plots—yes, please! Though I occasionally step outside my comfort zone, I'm consistently drawn back to these categories.
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own. A friend murdered. A business in trouble. A marriage struggling to survive. And that’s just the beginning.
When salon owner Carrie King discovers Liza dead in the back room of her shop, everyone becomes a suspect, even her. As tensions in the community rise, so does the death toll, and now the local cops believe there’s a serial killer on the loose. The question is … are the two investigations connected?…
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own.
A friend murdered.
A business in trouble.
A marriage struggling to survive.
And that’s just the beginning.
When salon owner Carrie King discovers Liza dead in the back room of her shop, everyone becomes a suspect, even her. As tensions in the community rise, so does the death toll, and now the local cops believe there’s a serial killer on the loose. The question is … are the two investigations connected?…
