Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

 The Wrong Girl by Laura Wilson. "Everything was in a mess. She's been left in this horrible room because she was the wrong girl. She wasn't good enough to be Phoebe or have a mum like Melissa. Of course she wasn't. How could she ever have thought she was?" We can all sympathise with being in the wrong place at the wrong time can't we? But imagine having the wrong life and being the wrong person? Does that make any sense? Once you've worked through the complexities of this plot with these dysfunctional characters that all seem to have fragile egos appearing to be very unstable and grossly unhappy it should make sense. This is typical of Guardian crime reviewer, Laura Wilson and this one is certainly worthy of your time. Wilson reminds us throughout that whatever actions we have taken in the past, they will always come back to haunt us. Guilt unfortunately, may define us, so how do we choose the guilt we can live with and repress it as long a...

                      MGs, The Mini and Me by Dudley Pike. "Working on a production line can be tedious and boring, and you would need to take breaks in order to maintain your focus and concentration." It had been a family tradition to work for MG. Pike's father and two brothers were well-established before Pike served his apprenticeship in Abington. He spent 45 years in the motor industry with many interesting tales included in this book. "I didn't have a particularly privileged childhood." Travelling around the world with the rally circuit compensated for an uneventful childhood, with plenty of celebrations, champagne parties and glamorous women waiting to fulfil a young man pumped with testosterone. We are presented with glimpses of his personal life, from school to marriage, chaotic, marked by infidelity and marital breakups. He reminisces over the camaraderie of the past, explaining ho...

                                    Room by Emma Donoghue. "I was a student. It was early in the morning, I was crossing a parking lot to get to the college library, listening to…this man ran up asking for help, his dog was having a fit and he thought it might be dying…" It sounds innocent enough doesn't it? What followed was a shocking account of a young woman's abduction, an innocent victim who lost seven good years of her life locked up like an animal by a monster who wanted to control women and gratify his sexual desires. A pervert. Too many disturbed guys preying on women. "Too grim and heartbreaking for some viewers, Room is nevertheless an extraordinary film so powerful and unforgettable that it must be seen." Time Out. Ma and 5 year old Jack were incarcerated in a 11 by 11 Room which was in a soundproofed garden shed in the backyard of Old Nick who "stole" her. She was kidnap...

              And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. "Ten people dead on an island and not a living soul on it. It doesn't make sense. We don't know who did it, or why, or how." Regarded as Christie's masterpiece, the most difficult of her books to write and more than 100 million copies sold worldwide to cement the reputation of Christie as the Queen of Crime. Sarah Phelp's recent adaptation of the book was atmospheric and gripping with a stellar cast lead by Charles Dance, Aidan Turner and Sam Neill. The book needed an epilogue to explain who the culprit was and why he had chosen his particular victims for this fantastical crime, "something stupendous-out of the common. Something theatrical, impossible." Sir Thomas Legge, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and Inspector Maine try to piece it together after the discovery of the bodies and can't quite get it right. "Some fanatic with a bee in his bonnet about ...

                       Maranda the Mermaid by K.J.Rollinson. "Panic and horror replaced the loving look in my eyes. To love a human was not possible. He should be told he had fallen in love with a mermaid." This delightful tale is aimed at the parents and grandparents of children between the ages of 5-10. Fantasy of the most innocent kind for those impressionable years. It is suitable for independent readers or ideal as a bedtime story. Enchanting reading. Maranda (star of the sea) Melanie Seagrove is 11 years of age. Known as Mysterious Maranda by her two close friends, Jill, also aged 11 and her brother, Ethan, aged 12. This is because of her Houdini act and leading a dual life of part-human, part-mermaid. If she wants to locate her mother, Marella, she uses a large conch shell which acts as a loud speaker, a bit like the “mob” in Golding's Lord of the Flies. Our heroine has to change her clothes and stuff al...

                               The Catalyst by Joy Lennick. "The briefest hiatus and a deathly silence prefaced the sounds of human suffering." This novel touches on the three train and bus bombings in London on 7th July 2005, inventing a romantic and fictitious scenario for the two main protagonists who are caught up in the Aldgate terror attack. It was written in memory of those killed and injured whilst developing a personal  narrative of two people who share something in common-suffering. Both were injured physically and mentally but they did survive. They were the fortunate ones. From then on we have a simple boy meets girl tale and a romantic liaison ensues. For those of you who want something a bit more intense, I'd recommend Julie Nicholson's memoirs about her daughter Jenny who was blown up during this terrorist attack. Lennick's might show some suffering and give us some facts abo...

                                           Still Alice. Film Review. "The art of losing isn't hard to master. So many things seem filled with the intent that their loss is no disaster." If we are defined by our intelligence, our language and articulation, then just imagine what it would be like to lose them all.  Julianne Moore, a versatile performer, dubbed the Queen of realism, won an Academy Award in 2015 for her portrayal of Alice Howland, the 50 year old linguistics' Professor from Columbia University, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, a rare familial type that meant her children stood a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene. Recently we have seen a surge in films showing cancer victims as well as Alzheimer victims. Take for instance "The Fault in Our Stars" or "50/50" even "The Notebook" and "Away From Her." Then, of course there's John Bayley's sa...