Reading in Reykjavík

Genre: Urban fantasy, alternative reality, pastiche. I'm not going to give any plot summary here, since the plot hinges on so many secrets that I might give one away by accident.   Never the Bride builds on an interesting, if not exactly original premise: the old Gothic horror stories describe real historical events and there really are more things in Heaven and Earth (and Hell) than Horatio could have dreamt. The Bride of Frankenstein is real and lives in Whitby; the Invasion from Mars really happened; vampires walk the earth; and there are more spooky goings-on in the Goth capital of Britain than you can shake a stick at. Oh, and the book is full of cliches, just like the last two paragraphs. That's not to say it isn't entertaining, but there is something missing. The narrative is episodic rather than linear and while the stories that make up each episode do connect into a plot of sorts, there are so many loose ends flapping in the breeze that you can see not ...

I won this book in a giveaway last year (thanks, Janet!) and have finally got round to reading it. The premise of this anthology is for four modern authors to play with characters, themes and stories from Jane Austen novels. There are two historical stories and two modern ones, each taking inspiration from a different novel. I decided to review each story separately as I finished it and then give an opinion on the book as a whole. Since the review seems set to become somewhat long, I will divide it into two parts. The other part will be posted tomorrow. Genre: Paranormal romance Year of publication: 2010 Almost Persuaded by Mary Balogh Sub-genre: Historical Setting & time: England, Regency era Level of sensuality: Kissing plus one very short (and very flowery) sex scene. Mary Balogh has written some pretty good historical romances set in England during the Regency and Georgian eras. This, however, is her first venture into paranormal territory. The story she chos...