Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                                          Which language                                           has not been the oppressor's tongue?                                           Which language                               ...

                                               Great Pan is not dead;                                                he simply emigrated                                                                   to India...

This novel is compelling reading for everyone interested in war or romance. When you read it you will see lots of evidence of Breslin's research into the first world war. It's also a personal drama mainly of two families who become closer and share the great tragedy of loss. We learn about the war through the personal struggles and traumas faced by the soldiers and Breslin uses a sequence of letter-correspondence to show her truth about the horrors of war. Maggie and Charlotte seem compelled to help the war effort at home but they long for action in France where casualties are severe and nurses are needed urgently. The older generation epitomises the pride and glory of fighting for one's country and one example of this is when Francis is given a white feather as a sign of cowardice because he has not, as yet, conscripted. The younger generation have mixed feelings; those who have been socially conditioned and less educated share the concept of honour and glory lik...

"A beauty that ripped you open and scoured you clean" as you floundered through the Alaskan wilderness. A compelling and beautifully written debut novel that is highly recommended, combining folklore, the supernatural and mystery. It seems that life is full of oxymorons. You don't have to be a literary genius to work that one out. Joy and sorrow. Life and death. black and white. An endless list of contrasts. Life doesn't go the way we plan or hope Ivey tells us. A truism? The story is set in the 1920s. Life has been cruel to Mable and Jack the two main characters. Through the course of the novel Mabel realises that joy and sorrow go hand in hand. It seems you can't have one without the other. I found her an interesting character although sometimes too pessimistic, harbouring thoughts of suicide as the novel opens-toying with the idea of ending it all. She is uncomfortable with the harsh Alaskan environment, unhappy and carrying the heavy burden of guilt,...

Unfamiliar territory, not knowing what lies ahead. Betrayal and murder dominate from start to finish. Stephen Lawrence adopts the mystery, thriller and suspense genre and admits to being influenced in his writing by James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin and Clive Cussler. Pete, as the protagonist in this thriller is an interesting mixture of aggression and brutality combined with a sense of guilt and wrongdoings or what I would simply call humanity.  He almost becomes a real life James Bond! The mystery is this. Pete longs for the camaraderie and the adrenaline rush, the thrills and spills of army life but he has been medically discharged and he seems to be in retirement mode, happily married to Jess, a talented freelance architect. Okay so far? Something is missing. He wanted to recapture his SAS days in the Glorious Glosters , craving the excitement and danger of former times. He reflects on his Falklands' experience in June 1982 with hand to hand combat an...