Can I first say that I am in no way affiliated to the magazine, but love not only reading books, but also read about books / authors / what's new / what are others reading etc. I'm a subscriber to this magazine. Apart from author interviews and book reviews, the magazine usually offers some of the books they reviewed for free to the readers (you will need to pay P&P though which is £3 per book).
The latest issue 79 January/Februar 2014 dropped trough my letter box last weekend and this is what you will find in the magazine:
Interview with Val McDermaid
The Best-selling UK crime author talks about her career, her
books, her characters
Some
things I picked out which I found particularly interesting:
Look
out for:
- · She talks about Agatha Christie and how one particular story was found in scattered in several of Christie’s notebooks which she carried with her (made me smile, because I almost always carry several notebooks with me J
- · Violence in Crime Fiction which she calls ‘pornography of violence’
- · Her contacts in the police / forensics who assist her
Books which are reviewed in the magazine and which you can
order for free (pay £3 P&P per book)
Every review always also features an extract from the book
Please note: I have not read yet any of the books below)
1.
Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas 
Tsolkias is the Greek/Australia author who came to fame with
his story ‘The Slap’ published in 2008. This is the new offering of this
author. It tells the story of Daniel Kelly, a talented young swimmer who
struggles to cope with the pressures of the sport.
2.
Longbourn by Jo Baker 
This book takes a spin on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (and Downtown Abbey), cleverly telling the
story of the servants / maids in the Bennett’s household. I’m usually not a fan
of period drama, but the writing sound really good and the extract had me
hooked already with the story of housemaid Polly musing about the Bennett’s
dirty laundry (literally) and the powerful descriptions of their hard work.
3.
When Mr Dog Bites by Brian
Conaghan 
A YA novel about a sixteen year old boy with Tourette’s
syndrome, has been compared to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime . The author himself
has Tourette’s so I think this will be really authentic. 4. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver
A novel about climate change, possible environmental
diseaster, ‘exploring escape versus reason, catastrophe versus denial.’ I love
this kind of stories, and a large amount of research must have gone into it. 5. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Here the author took the historical figure of Sarah Grimke,
the American abolitionist, writer and suffragist who lived in the 1800’s and
told the (imagined) story of her house-slave, Hetty. Slavery, racism, America’s
deep South. From the extract, I loved the way that Hetty’s language is brought
across: “I was shrewd like mauma.” Well worth putting on the TBR pile.
6.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue
Monk Kidd 
Again, the author goes back to her memories of Georgia in
the 1950’s and 1960’s, the racism, Rosa Park’s, Ku Klux Klan, Martin Luther
King. 7. Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
I read about this somewhere else (can’t remember now where),
and it is a soon-to-be-a-movie novel. The story unfolds on a Labour Day weekend
what Adele, a divorcee, takes her son to a supermarket where they come across a
man in blood soaked clothing who asks them to help him and he is a murder. And
astonishingly, Adele does take him home. The story is told from the point of
the 13 year old son if I understand the feature right. Sound like a book I
would enjoy me says!
Other books featured in the magazine:
·
Unfaithfully
Yours by Nigel Williams 
A
woman writes a letter to a private detective, asking for her husband to be
investigated. Stories of marriages
unravelling, told through a series of letters
·
Hearts of Darkness by Paul Lawrence
Hearts of Darkness by Paul Lawrence
London
in the 1700’s, the plague. Harry Lytle works for the intelligence service to
return a traitor. Interesting mix – London, the plague and intelligence
service.
·
The Buy Side by Turney Duff
The Buy Side by Turney Duff
Non-fiction.
Wall Street Trader exposes the after-hours of sex and drugs. Very current with
the recent Leonardo De Caprio movie Wall Street in the cinemas at the moment
covering the same sort of topic and I think people will be interested in it. I
did watch the movie tbw and thought it was very good. (well, it helps that I do
love De Caprio)
Debut novels who are being introduced
· Writers Block
by Judith Flanders
· The Ruby
Slippers by Keir Alexander
· The Amber
Fury by Nathalie Haynes
· The
Undertaking by Audrey Magee
· The Boy that
Never Was by Karen Perry
· The Lie of
You by Jane Lythell
· Custard Tarts
and Broken Hearts by Mary Gibson
· The Mangle
Street Murders by M.R.C Kasasian
And finally, there are other
features to discover, i.e an interview with musician Mike Rutherford (of
Genesis) and the section I always read religiously is The Directory which features a selection of titles recently
published or about to the published in the next 6 weeks or so.