So much of our culture and our fiction comes from taking older stories and ideas and reworking, blending, and adapting them into new forms. This cultural mixture has gifted us with some of the greatest works of English literature, and I’ve always been surprised and delighted to discover what people can pull out of older works and make. It’s why my first novels have followed the theme, and why I will always have time to check out a new story that builds on older ideas to create something new.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Jasper Fforde’s blend of serious drama and wacky humour, and his Nursey Crimes series is one of my favourite. Set in a world in which nursery rhyme characters live alongside ordinary humans, it follows Detective-Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary, as they investigate the murder of wealthy investor Humpty Dumpty, dealing with the dark underpinnings of nursery rhyme society.
It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.
Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody.
As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's…
Jenna Moran is an under-appreciated author who combines whimsy and darkness in equal measure, created worlds that are at once familiar and strange. This bittersweet picture book is her at her finest, accompanied by glorious artwork by Elizabeth Sherry as she tells the story of a picture-book world attacked by an invasion of terrible, otherworldly things—Ordinary Objects.
Earth is full. Now, when there's a new ordinary thing, it doesn't have anywhere to go. A plague of blankets, chairs, and other horrors unleashes itself upon the picture-book realm. Warning: content is fearsome.
"O.O
that is a very creepy children's book.
O.O" - C.E. Murphy, author of the Walker Papers series, The Negotiator Trilogy, and the Inheritor's Cycle.
I have a weakness for authors who can seamlessly write in another author’s style, and The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count blends Conan Doyle and Stoker perfectly. Holmes and Watson are drawn into the tale of Count Dracula when they are called to investigate the mystery of a ship whose crew have vanished, adding their genius to the vampire hunters working to keep the Count from the shores of England. With Dracula Daily taking the online world by storm, this is the perfect time to look up another take on these classic tales.
The year is 1890. A ship is discovered adrift off the English coast, its crew missing, its murdered captain lashed to the wheel, and its only passenger is a sinister black dog. This impenetrable mystery is clearly a case for the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, but for the first time in his illustrious career the great detective is baffled. Clearly the crew have been murdered and dumped overboard, but what can account for the captain's expression of imponderable terror and his acute loss of blood, or the ship's strange cargo - fifty boxes of earth? The game is afoot, and Sherlock…
China Mievelle’s first work, a retelling of the story of the Pied Piper from the point of view of those that he commands, is a dark and gruesome story that gripped me from the first page. Difficult family relations, grim mysteries, and an ancient fable brought into the modern world—this book has it all!
Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul Garamond's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.
But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into Saul's prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat, who reveals Saul's royal heritage, a heritage that opens a new world to Saul, the world below London's streets--a heritage that also drags Saul into King Rat's plan for revenge against his ancient enemy,. With drum 'n' bass pounding the backstreets, Saul must confront the forces that would use him,…
Unapologetically furious, vicious, and brilliant, Iron Widow adapts the history and folk tales surrounding Wu Zetian, the first empress regnant of China, into a science fiction tale of giant robots, oppressive societies, and rebellion, featuring a team of heroes that fight back against everything their world throws at them. Appropriate for adults or younger readers, it caught my imagination and refuses to let go, and I can’t wait for the sequel.
Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through…
Todd Malcolm would be the first person to tell you that he’s no Basil Stark. He’s just a bouncer, part-time detective’s assistant, and brawler who does his best to get by on the mean streets of 1950s Everland. But when Todd gets mixed up in an arson one night, he’s thrown in over his head. With his friends Glimmer and Vance Carson, Everland’s ‘other detective’, Todd will have to contend with federal agents, angry tigers, murderous mermaids, and shadowy threats at every turn. Does Todd have what it takes to handle this case, or is he just a pawn in a dangerous plot?
To hide a corporation’s failure to properly service a space ship, Captain Jonas Stryker is prosecuted but saved from imprisonment by a dying man, who hires Stryker to collect asteroids for their mineral content. Stryker soon finds he must stop a shadowy corporate group called The Board, who employ space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids to overthrow the Federation government.
Set in Lagrange points, space stations, the Moon and outback Australia, it is a fast-moving story with some speculative future technology. If you were interested in the NASA attempt to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, you might…
When a trial to cover-up a corporate failure ends Captain Jonas Stryker's career, he wants revenge against The Board, a ruthless, shadowy organization with limitless funds that employs space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids. Posing as a space miner, Stryker learns that The Board wants him killed, while a young female SCIB police agent wants retribution against him for having her career spoiled at his trial. As Stryker avoids attempts to kill him, he becomes the only chance to prevent The Board from overturning the Federation Government and imposing a Fascist-style rule. A story of greed, corruption and honour,…
