The Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden

On the banks of the ageless Nile, from a palace of gold and lapis lazuli, the young Fatimid Caliph Rashid al-Hasan rules as a figurehead over a crumbling empire. Cairo is awash in intrigues. In the shadow of the Gray Mosque, generals and emirs jockey for position under the scheming eyes of the powerful grand vizier, Jalal; in the crowded Souk, these factions use murder and terror to silence their opposition. Egypt bleeds and the scent draws her enemies in like sharks: Shirkuh, the swaggering Kurd who serves the pious and severe Sultan of Damascus, and Amalric, the Christian king of Jerusalem whose insatiable greed knows no bounds.

Yet, the Caliph of Cairo has an unexpected ally - an old man who lives on a remote Asian mountaintop, a place where eagles fear to tread. This benefactor, the Shaykh al-Jabal, the Old Man of the Mountain, holds the ultimate power of life and death over the warring factions of the Moslem world, and he sends his greatest weapon into Egypt.

He sends Caliph Rashid al-Hasan, a single man. An Assassin. The one they call the Emir of the Knife . . .


As a long-standing fan of Scott Oden, having read both Memnon and Men of Bronze long before the existence of MFB, I was really pleased to have received a copy of The Lion of Cairo to read and review.

What struck me the most about Lion of Cairo is the rich detailed settings and how I could close my eyes and feel the heat of the sun and hear the whisper of sandalled feet on marble floors of a Cairene palace.  I never doubted, for a moment, that I had been transported across time to a world filled with beautiful mysterious harem girls, wily politicians involved in devious political plots and where my only possible ally is an assassin with a fearsome reputation.

The thing about the author, Scott Oden, is that he has an eye for detail.  He writes from a wide cinematic viewpoint, then narrows it down minutely, to the extent where you feel you've become thoroughly involved in the characters and the story.

Out of the cast of characters we spend time with in The Lion of Cairo, it is Assad the assassin, the Emir of the Knife that is the most intriguing.  We learn only a few facts about Assad but we come to realise that he is honourable, he keeps his word, he is utterly ruthless, he hates the infidels for invading his country, and that his loyalty to his master and his master's plan is unflinching.  I found myself genuinely liking Assad and rooting for him in his task of assisting the young Caliph.

The other cast of characters, all secondary when compared to Assad, are well defined.  We have the thief lord's daughter, Zaynab, also known as the Gazelle for her beauty and grace, who is playing a very dangerous game as spy and manipulator on a scale she's not entirely prepared for.  We also have a young inhabitant of the harem, Parysatis, whose dedication to the young Caliph, although she has never truly met him, is beyond question.  It is through her overhearing a whispered conversation that the greater extent of the story is set in motion.  She remains a believable constant throughout and I really came to like her.  Yes, she had guts, but she was not kick-ass.  Instead she did things quietly and with the help of her maid Yasmina, they caused the dangerous Jalal, a great deal of trouble.

I'm sad that I can't really explain to you how complex the plot is without falling back on well-worn cliché's.   But it is complex, clever, layered and ultimately believable.  I love Cairo and it has a special place in my heart and know of the places Oden writes about, having had the chance to visit some of them whilst we visited there.  Even now, in modern times, there is a mystique to this city, for all it's noise, chaos and dirt, that just refuses to lie down and give up the ghost and I think this is also why I loved The Lion of Cairo so much.

I found it very interesting that our story is told entirely from a Muslim point of view, where we see the crusaders and the church as the actual invaders and devious manipulators we aren't really shown in other historical novels set during the crusades.  This novel is very much the story of Assad and the young Caliph, but it is also very much a homage to one of the greatest cities on earth.

I cannot recommend this enough - as it has a bit of everything in it, great epic battles, hand to hand combat, budding romance, strife, hatred, evil politicians, magicians, creatures of darkness and light and a tiny tang of fantasy.

Right, I'm off to go and book my holiday to Egypt for next year.  In the meantime, find Scott Oden's websites here - this is his older site and this is his new one. The Lion of Cairo is out now from Bantam Books here in the UK.

Worth Dying For by Lee Child

There's deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska ... and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it's the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades-old, that Reacher can't let go.

The Duncans want Reacher gone - and it's not just past secrets they're trying to hide. They're awaiting a secret shipment that's already late - and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they're right at the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world.

For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to keeping on going, to put some distance between himself and the hardcore trouble that's bearing down on him.

For Reacher, that was also impossible.

This was my first ever Jack Reacher/Lee Child novel and I've come to two conclusions:

1. Reading Lee Child is like becoming addicted to something like chocolate or coca-cola, as you can't stop once you've started;
2. What the hell is Hollywood thinking casting Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher?  Admittedly, Tom-boy has "skills" but never, ever, ever, is he going to pull off being as solidly kick-ass as Jack.  Not even if they give him shoes with stilts built in.

The very first thing I liked about Worth Dying For is that there is a bio/CV on Jack Reacher to examine, even before you get to the story.  You are left - if you are a newbie like me - with NO doubt who Jack is...or rather, what he's capable of.  And I did wonder how I would end up identifying with this tough guy and if he was going to be so macho the book would drip with testosterone.  I was 100% ready not to like it. 

I couldn't have been more wrong. 

Jack got me on his side by doing a simple thing: he drove a drunk doctor to the home of a battered patient and forced him to administer to her.  Then Jack went, after dropping the doctor back home, to find the battered woman's husband and biffing him in the face, whilst he was at dinner with some mates. 

From then on, which is really the start of Jack's troubles, I was telling everyone about Jack and what a badass he is. 

Mr. Child takes his time to set up the story, how Seth (the guy Jack smacked on the nose) runs home to his dad and his uncles to tell them about this guy who came to hit him for beating up his wife and suddenly, all four Duncans have it in for Jack Reacher.

As Jack gets to know the small community of farmers in the area, whilst dodging the "Cornhuskers" (ex-football athletes the Duncans employ to intimate the farmers), Jack comes to realise that the Duncans have a strangle-hold on the community and if there is one thing Jack dislikes...it's a bully. 

But the Duncans aren't just bullies who blackmail the local farmers into using their transport trucks to transport their harvested crops.  There is something else going on with them too and it's not above board.  This other business of theirs happens to come under threat because of Jack running around and they mention it to their business partners, citing Jack's presence as the delay in the delivery of the "goods".  These business partners in turn inform their business partners and so it goes up the supply line, until a group of out of towners descend on the small Nebraska town and things get very heated.

In the midst of all this, Jack is trying to stay alive and solve a missing girl's disappearance from over 20 years ago.  The little girl lived in the area and her mum lives a hand to mouth existence, mainly due to the Duncans punishing her for naming them in the investigation all that time ago.

I admire Lee Child for his writing prowess in this.  As readers we are shown the macro view and as the story unfolds the story becomes more and more focused and Jack's actions become deadlier and less random-seeming.  I loved how the story unfolds into an intimate expose of the small corner of Nebraska with Jack at its core, the spider unravelling the intricate web.  It is superb planning going on in the background and the only other writers I know of who can pull this off successfully is Stephen King in The Stand and It and Neil Gaiman in his American Gods.

Worth Dying For is a masterclass of thriller writing and I've become a fan of Lee Child, sort of against my will.  Even if I know I'm being manipulated, I can't help but fall for Jack and for rooting for him and luxuriating in the comfort he gives me knowing that he's out there. (I realise it's fiction, but still.  We all need a bit of Jack Reacher in our lives).  And that I think that is such an important experience for a reader - I'm not 6'6" and I do not have devastating martial arts skills or a Black Ops background, but I do have an inner sense of what is right and wrong and Lee Child plays those cards when he writes Reacher, and I believe it implicitly.

Enough gushing from me - if you've ever turned up your nose at a Lee Child, surprise yourself and buy one to read this summer, start with Worth Dying For because it just plain bloody good storytelling.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Reacher's Newest Fan

Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

Synopsis:

Jeweller Garet James isn't the same as everyone else.



She just doesn't know it yet.

With her fair share of problems – money (lack of), an elderly father, a struggling business – Garet should be just like any other young, feisty, single New Yorker. If only it was that simple...

It begins with the old silver box that had been soldered shut. All Garet has to do is open it. A favour for the frail owner of the antiques shop. Who wouldn’t help?

Only it’s then that things start to change. Garet doesn't notice at first, the shifts barely perceptible. But the city in which she grew up is beginning to reveal a long-hidden side – darker, and altogether more dangerous: parallel world of chaos, smoke and blood.

And now it’s out of the box...and it has no intention of going back in.

I read Black Swan Rising in September when I got stricken down with a rubbish cold.  I read it in two days and then promptly re-read it again.

Lee Carroll has managed to give mystery and magic back to the urban fantasy genre that has become over populated with kick ass females and sparkly vampires.

In Black Swan Rising (BSR) we meet Garet - she is a professional young woman, a competent and creative jeweller, who has to face some awful facts: the house that she shares with her father, a dealer in artwork and a friend to a variety of artists and creators, will be taken by the bank to cover their escalating debts.  Her dad had made some unwise purchases on the cusp of the market collapsing and now they're stuck with some amazing pieces of art which sadly they can't get sold.  And even in a recovering market, things were looking tough.

Garet's strength lies in her ability to be both a creative person and a realist, not usually traits we see that go hand in hand, or at least not in the books and movies, when artists are portrayed.  She forms a sharp modern contrast to her father who is quite elderly and perhaps a bit frail, who lives his life remembering the past, the good times, the golden years, as such. He also still mourns the loss of his wife some years before.

I loved the sense of community in BSR - we have Garet's dad and his crony remembering the old times on the one hand, we have Garet's friends who are in an up and coming band, then we also have the community in which Garet's house and studio is based.

I've never been to New York but obviously know quite a bit about it because of movies and TV shows and books, yet even this fleeting knowledge was good enough to anchor me in BSR because really, Garet's entire story is told within the NY landscape.  The city and the river is as much a part of the story as the characters we meet and I loved that.  It has made me yearn to visit so much.

Garet's choice to huddle in the doorway of a small shop to get out of the rain, after receiving the bad news of their escalating debt initially seems random, but as the story of the shop keeper and the mysterious box he asks her to open, unfolds, you realise there is more to this random encounter than meets the eye.

Then, after she manages to open the box, and then their home and studio gets broken into, Garet's spidey sense starts to tingle even more.  Something is going on, the box is the key, but so is the signet ring she wears - the signet ring with the swan rising.  Her father suffers quite badly in the break-in and is rushed to hospital.  The care given to him there by the kindly staff enhances yet again the sense of community within the novel.  As is her growing friendship with one of the male nurses, Obie.

As Garet slowly but surely starts piecing together some bits of the story about the break in, the box, her own heritage, and what might in fact be going on, there is this great sense within the novel that you are pushing your way through a fog, only to discover one thing, that leads to another, that leads to another.  That, people, is great plotting.

Now, this obviously wouldn't be urban fantasy without Garet somehow becoming involved with supernatural beings.  In this instance she has several encounters with fae creatures and a vampire, amongst other things.  There is an element of romance but in no way is it the driving force behind the novel to the extent where the actual narrative suffers. 

What I enjoyed about BSR is that Garet grows so much within the context of the story.  No, she does not become an improbably tough kick ass female with devastating martial skills, but she does learn about her own strengths and gifts she inherited being from a long line of female protectors. She is shown ways to fight and guard against the man who gave her the mysterious box; none other than the infamous John Dee.

There is really quite a lot more to say about this book but really, if you are looking for a thoughtful, beautifully written book, anchored firmly in the urban fantasy genre, but breaking the rules and being quite literary, at the same time, I can't recommend Black Swan Rising enough.  I am not fond of "if you like this, you will like this" recommendations but in this instance I have to list a few novels and authors I think you may have read / know of which may encourage you to pick up Black Swan Rising:

Charles de Lint's - The Onion Girl / Greenmantle / Yarrow and Moonheart
Midori Snyder - Hannah's Garden / The Flight of Michael McBride
Neil Gaiman - American Gods / Anansi Boys
Emma Bull - War for the Oaks / Bone Dance
Holly Black - Tithe / Valiant / Ironheart
I'll stop there, but I think you get the drift from the author's I've mentioned above. 

A final thought: I do think that some of the more mature readers of YA (and I mean aged 16+ not mature as me aged 37) may very well enjoy reading Black Swan Rising.  It has a dark heart but the main character's growth and discovery of herself will definitely appeal to readers who are keen for a book that has more scope and plays off against a larger background.

Black Swan Rising is out 25th November 2010 from Bantam Books / Transworld.  And I've just realised it will make a perfect Yule pressie as its atmosphere is very much suitatable to that time of year.  Clever!

Raven: Blood Eye by Giles Kristian - Viking Week

Synopsis:

For two years Osric has lived a simple life, apprentice to the mute old carpenter who took him in when others would have him cast out. But when Norsemen from across the sea burn his village they also destroy his new life, and Osric finds himself a prisoner of these warriors. Their chief, Sigurd the Lucky, believes the Norns have woven this strange boy's fate together with his own, and Osric begins to sense glorious purpose among this Fellowship of warriors.Immersed in the Norsemen's world and driven by their lust for adventure, Osric proves a natural warrior and forges a blood bond with Sigurd, who renames him Raven. But the Norsemen's world is a savage one, where loyalty is often repaid in blood and where a young man must become a killer to survive. When the Fellowship faces annihilation from ealdorman Ealdred of Wessex, Raven chooses a bloody and dangerous path, accepting the mission of raiding deep into hostile lands to steal a holy book from Coenwolf, King of Mercia. There he will find much more than the Holy Gospels of St Jerome. He will find Cynethryth, an English girl with a soul to match his own. And he will find betrayal at the hands of cruel men, some of whom he regarded as friends...

An opening line that starts thus:

'I do not know where I was born. When I was young, I would sometimes dream of great rock walls rising from the sea so high that the sun's warmth never hit the cold, black water....I know nothing of my childhood, of my parents, or if I had brothers and sisters. I do not even know my birth name.'

..really does make you want to curl up and read more, doesn't it? And it now annoys me in retrospect that it's taken me a while to sit down and read Raven: Blood Eye because I could have hung around with Osric (Raven), Sigurd and the boys, a whole lot earlier. But, having said that, I strongly believe in a bit of chaos theory: things come to you when you're ready.

So, Raven came to me and I fell in love. First of all, having met Giles Kristian at the book launch for the second book: Raven: Sons of Thunder, I was struck by how charming he was, but also how immersed he was in his writing. During his speech when he thanked various people for their help he mentioned things like: steering the dragon ship along the whale road and he mentioned skalds and other words which now escape me, as it was some time ago. I initially thought, yeah yeah, Kristian, good one, playing the game, live up to the heritage and the writing and the research. But honestly, having read both these books, in rapid succession, I now suspect that that speech was probably more real than I had anticipated.

When I say this novel is immersive, I mean it. It's written in a very macho way. No, that sounds wrong. It's written in a manly way, hua! How can I describe it? The writing reflects the characters, the age and the rough camaraderie and friendship that bonded these raiders and warriors together. Therefore the use of language is strong, sometimes violently over the top, as it is seen from Osric's point of view initially and he's only a young boy.

You can't write about Vikings and tough guys without violence and death. But there are ways to do so and still retain your reader's belief in your characters and the action. Mr. Kristian manages that with devastating ease and bearing in mind, this is his debut novel, you can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, he was channeling something from a previous life? I'm kidding, of course, about the previous life thing, but honestly, the battle scenes are nasty and vicious and yet they never made me want to put the book down and I never caught myself thinking, okay, this is rubbish, it's going a bit over the top and becoming pointless and gratuitous. And yes, that rumour you've heard about the blood eagle explained in great detail, but not with relish, is as grim as you can imagine. *shudder*

The story is held together by Osric/Raven. A deeply human character with flaws, hang-ups and strengths and insecurities, we at first experience the terror of the raid on his village coupled with the fact that he can actually understand and speak these invaders' language! Having been found two years before, no one really knows anything about Osric. He's an outsider in the village, mainly because of his one red eye. The fact that he can't remember anything about where he comes from or what had happened to him, sets him apart from the small community he lives in, and he is treated a bit disdainfully.

As he's taken by Sigurd and his crew he realises it's a case of sink or swim and slowly but surely, he comes to be accepted, firstly by Sigurd, then other members of the crew. He's given his new name and a new life opens before him. The action is thrilling and wild and practically non-stop. And I'm also pleased to say that the characterisation is rich, as is the world-building.

Raven: Blood Eye is a really neat (if bloody) package that ticks all the right boxes when it comes to what epic historical fiction is all about, and then some. I've noticed some people liken it to other writers such as Bernard Cornwell, Tim Severin and others and honestly, it's as good as that and the even better thing: there is more to come.

Giles Kristian, please, don't stop writing! Raven: Blood Eye and Raven: Sons of Thunder can be found online as well as other good high street bookshops. And this is Giles' website.

Awakening by SJ Bolton

Synopsis:

An idyllic village is thrown into turmoil in a startling, heart-racing thriller.

Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact wherever possible. But when a man dies, following a supposed snake bite, Clara learns that the victim’s post mortem shows a higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in a single snake.

Assisted by her softly spoken neighbour and an eccentric reptile expert, Clara unravels sinister links to a barbaric ancient ritual, an abandoned house and a fifty year old tragedy that left the survivors fiercely secretive. Then the village’s inventive attacker strikes again, and Clara’s own solitary existence is brutally invaded. For someone the truth must remain buried in the past...even if they have to kill to keep it there.

How did it all begin? Well, I suppose it would be the day I rescued a newborn baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother’s death and encountered my first ghost. Thinking about it, I could even pinpoint the time. A few minutes before six on a Friday morning and my quiet, orderly life went into meltdown.

For someone who loves reading the opening page of a book, reading this small paragraph from Awakening, the second novel by the 2008 debut author SJ Bolton, is a pure treat. And it just keeps getting better with the crisis escalating higher and higher.

Our heroine, Clara Benning, is a brilliantly created main character. She has a great affinity for animals and much prefer their company to those of humans. Having moved to a small village she keeps to herself and minds her own business. Needless to say everyone in the village is intrigued by Clara, who she is and how she came to carry an ugly scar on her face.

When she is called in to help a panicked mother rescue her infant from a snake in it's crib, her life takes on a different dimension altogether. Snakes are being found all over the village, in people's homes and everyone is panicking. The majority of the snakes are harmless British snakes and it is illegal for them to be caught and killed. But not all of the snakes are harmless and Clara very soon has her hands full with a deadly taipan snake, its origins in the very far Papua New Guinea. No one knows where these snakes are coming from and there is a panic as an elderly man dies from a snakebite, whilst gardening. There is the mystery of the ghost which more than one villager has seen - the ghost of an elderly gentleman who had died the year before. Or had he? What happened back in 1958 and how did it involve the village being overrun by snakes?

Tautly written, Awakening is a gripping thriller with more than enough creep-factor. It is also a story about Clara finding herself and her confidence to confront her own fears by standing up for the truth - even it means that there is an arrest warrant out for her!

I saw a reviewer in The Bookseller say: "she just writes so well..." and it is true. SJ Bolton is a very gifted writer and although I loved her first novel, Sacrifice, I did not expect the same level of excellence in Awakening and I am truly happy to say that Awakening is even better than Sacrifice. Clara's characterisation is handled deftly - almost everything is seen from her point of view as the novel is written from first person perspective. In some other books I have read, this can become tedious very quickly but we are saved from any kind of boredom by an involved plotline and an unusual heroine who doesn't go so much with the flow as run flatout against it. She is contrary, a bit surly whilst being engaging at the same time - it is a very fine line which SJ Bolton treads here, creating a difficult heroine who could veer so very easily into someone unlikeable.

There are several strands in the novel which are tied up in a series of reveals and the success of these alone should indicate that the author has done a very good job. There is a very faint strand of romance and personally, I enjoyed the two male characters in the novel which Clara comes into contact with. I would have loved to have seen more of them in more scenes, but then this is Clara's story about her journey to discover the truth about the village, whilst it forms a backdrop to her own "Awakening".

Awakening is a fascinating read and will be going onto our "Summer Reads List" which we will be compiling from the end of May onwards during Summer. Awakening is published by Bantam here in the UK and is now available in all bookstores and online. SJ Bolton's site can be found here, along with the extract of the first chapter.

**Winner of Book To Talk About Revealed**

I am SO incredibly excited (and proud) to announce that Natasha Mostert has won the Spread The Word poll for her book Season of the Witch!!!!! Thanks to everyone from MFB who voted for her.

I just received the news via the Bookseller email and have liberally copied some of the text below:

***
More than 8,000 people voted online – in the World Book Day poll - on the "talkability" of a list of 50 titles selected by a panel of judges. The titles were then whittled down to a shortlist of ten at the end of January.

Mostert secured 25% of the public vote to win the poll and received a cheque for £5,000 at a ceremony in Waterstone’s Piccadilly, London, on WBD. Season of the Witch is published by Bantam Books.

Mostert said: "The premise of Season of the Witch is that twenty-first century man is losing his ability to remember because of all the technological tools at his disposal.

"We can hardly remember our own mobile phone numbers. In contrast, our ancestors had muscular memories: Simplicius was able to recite Virgil backwards. Seneca the Elder, who was born in 54 BC, was able to listen to a list of two thousand names and then repeat them in exact order."

The central character in Season of the Witch, Mostert’s fourth novel, is computer hacker Gabriel Blackstone who is able to see into the thought processes of others. He is reluctant to use this gift until he is contacted by an ex-lover trying to track down her step-son. Blackstone’s journey leads him to Monk House and a mysterious adventure in the occult.

The ten short-listed books were:

Bad Traffic, by Simon Lewis
Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet), Nasreen Akhtar
Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, Alison MacLeod
Imagine This, Sade Adeniran
Random Deaths and Custard, Catrin Dafydd
Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert
The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets, Sophie Hannah
The Opposite of Love, Julie Buxbaum
Vicky Had One Eye Open, Darryl Samaraweera
Wild, Jay Griffiths

***

How good is this for Natasha? The book is simply brilliant and I would urge everyone to go out and buy a copy. Not just that, but there is also a film-deal on the cards for Season of the Witch! This liberally stolen from Between the Lines: Film rights for the fantastic gothic thriller, Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert, have been sold to Allotria Films. Andrew Davies has written the script and James McTeigue is slated to direct.

Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert

Synopsis

Gabriel Blackstone has an unusual talent. A computer hacker by trade, he is also able to enter the minds of others. But he uses his gift only reluctantly - until he is contacted by an ex-lover who begs him to find her step-son, last seen months earlier in the company of two sisters. And so Gabriel visits Monk House, a place where time seems to stand still, and where the rooms are dominated by the coded symbol of a cross and circle. As winter closes in, Gabriel becomes increasingly bewitched by the house, and by its owners, the beautiful and mysterious Monk sisters. But even as he falls in love, he knows that one of them is a deadly killer. But which one? And what is the secret they are so determined to protect?

Season of the Witch is an adept piece of chilling storytelling that competently mixes subjects such as remote viewing, magic, alchemy, parapsychology and the quest for ancient knowledge into a heady concoction of expert storytelling.

I enjoyed Season of the Witch because of pure and intelligent storytelling and the creation of its two intriguing female characters, the sisters Monk with the fantastical names of Minnaloushe and Morrighan.

Gabriel is asked by an ex-flame of his to please try and find her stepson who had gone missing. He was known to have been involved with the two exotic older women. Gabriel is at first not particularly keen to help but as the story develops we learn that he is probably the best person to do so as he has a strange set of skills.

In his youth he had trained as a remote viewer. Something I had heard of before (who hasn't watching X Files!) but have not really encountered it before in a book. I found the various concepts hugely fascinating and sat back to enjoy all the threads coming together as the story developed.

Gabriel’s current job was not entirely legitimate and he works freelance as an electronics information hacker – both these skills help him infiltrate the very interesting lives of the two sisters and he finds himself intrigued by both of them. He becomes very close to them, spending a lot of time with them at their beautiful home - Monk House - and escorting them around town. The author portrays the two sisters so well that it is easy to see how Gabriel becomes so intrigued by these extraordinary women who live their lives with such gusto.

There is a breathlessness about Season that is reflected in the way the story unfolds. You know you are rushing towards this tremendous climax and you are helpless in the grip of the novel, simly knowing something momentous is going to happen.

I was not at all disappointed by the ending of the story and derived a sense of “job well done” satisfaction from it and really wished Gabriel the best at the end.

There is a lot of information to sift through in the novel but it doesn’t make for clunky reading. The author has a deft easy touch with her descriptions and I found myself doing research on the side into the various subjects the sisters are so keen on. A lot of this is discussed on Natasha’s site, so do feel free to visit them here.

I have got a very interesting blog to follow on from the review by Natasha and a mini competition for a copy of the paperback of Season of the Witch.

The Crystal Skull, Manda Scott

I was not at all prepared for this book. I loved her previous historical stuff and enjoyed the characters but wasn't entirely sure how she would be tackling the legends of the crystal skulls - especially with the Indiane Jones movie coming out shortly - naturally she wrote this ages before the title and plot for Indy IV had been made public. Just goes to show: the usual tapping into the dreamtree for writers and artists!

I am very happy and pleased to report that Manda Scott takes no prisoners in her newest book. It is a well written and well researched book. She comprehensively covers the legends, makes assumptions and runs with the story, embroidering on the bare bones and making it her own. She clearly states where she has borrowed and what is based on myth and legend. It is a book about a quest, about discovery and about pushing the boundaries of belief and suspending your own.

The story is set both in modern day and in the 16th Century and for me, the modern day section of the book, although well written with some genuinely good descriptive passages, just doesn't ring true for some reason. However, having said that, the parts I found myself enjoying the most relates to the travels of the young scholar Cedric Owen who was one of the keepers of the heart-stone. Somewhere along the line he seems more real and amusing than the two main modern day characters - or maybe that's just me being taken in my the Renaissance man?

This is a bit of the plot which I've copied across from Manda Scott's website to save some time:

The book opens with Stella Cody and her husband Kit searching a cave system for an ancient artefact, hidden there centuries before by Cedric Owen.

They have worked out the location of the crystal skull from a series of poems written by Owen. The skull is a remarkable sapphire cut into the shape of a human skull and it holds a great power over those who hold it, or even see it. Stella and Kit find the skull, but they are not the only people looking for it and Kit gets hurt as they try and escape from the caves.

Interlaced with the modern day plot line is that of Cedric Owen, the man who hid the skull, knowing it needed to be kept safe from the wrong hands. The skull had been passed down through his family for generations and he must continue to keep it guarded from those who would misuse it. He has several tasks he must perform to keep the skull, with its incredible powers, safe.

The skull is apparently one of thirteen skulls, recorded in Mayan prophecy. It is told that the end of the world will happen on 12th December 2012 and only if all thirteen of the skulls are in their appointed places in the world can this cataclysm be averted. The Mayan legends speak of a multi-coloured serpent which will be summoned by the skulls. Kit and Stella have to decipher Cedric Owen's notes and calculate the right place and time to place the skull.

But there are others who want to possess it and some who would destroy it. They need to figure out who they can trust and who is trying to kill them and seize the skull.

I would recommend the book as it is a good read and if you are a quest junkie like me, you will enjoy it. I think the fact that they are putting stickers on this to "Read the book before the movie" is a bit of a midirected marketing ploy, but it will find a home with many Indy and Tomb Raider fans - it has a bit more substance than some of the books out there written about various quests to find ancient artefacts and uncovering the real history of the world and such - suspend your disbelief and go on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns. You won't regret it.