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	<title>The Eloquent Page</title>
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	<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk</link>
	<description>Books, Books, Books</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 10:58:52 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Anatomy of Death edited by Mark West</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/14/anatomy-of-death-edited-by-mark-west/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/14/anatomy-of-death-edited-by-mark-west/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 10:58:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Hersham Horror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mark West]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anatomy of Death]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3404</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hersham Horror Books presents 5 more original stories from the minds of Stephen Bacon, Johnny Mains, John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Volk and Mark West. The third anthology in our PentAnth range brings you five more chilling tales that all have their roots in the gloriously lurid style of 1970s horror. Anatomy of Death (In Five Sleazy Pieces)  So what gruesome delights can we expect from this short story anthology? Pseudonym by Stephen Bacon – A young man is given the opportunity to meet one of his horror idols, a notoriously reclusive author, but what is it that the old man is hiding? I rather like the tone that this sets for the rest of the collection. This is the subtlest of stories and had me reminiscing about my own introduction to the horror genre many years ago. I loved seeing the mention of Fear magazine, I remember reading it back in the day. It’s a bit sneaky really. I was successfully lulled into a false sense of security by this only for the next story to start messing with my brain. The Cannibal Whores of Effingham by Johnny Mains -A megalomaniacal Hollywood star with seriously homicidal tendencies, meets his match when he visits the ladies of the night who ply their trade in Effingham. This is just balls-to-the-wall crazy. Liberally blood soaked with over the top violence and gore, nothing is left to the imagination. Things get weirder and weirder, it’s almost like some sort of psychedelic trip. I imagine Herschel Gordon Lewis would love it. I’m always impressed when writing can manage to be both bizarre, funny and shocking all at the same moment. Out of Fashion by John Llewellyn Probert &#8211; Last year I read The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr Llewellyn Probert’s writing is marvellously evocative stuff. This particular story has a Victorian steampunky/sci-fi feel and ends on a suitably downbeat note, I do so love a good apocalypse. Following the latest fashion has certainly never appeared more dangerous. I felt like I was watching a classic episode of the Hammer House of Horror TV series while reading this. The Arse-Licker by Stephen Volk  - One man&#8217;s journey from the metaphorical to the literal. I&#8217;ll say no more than that, for fear of spoiling things. Suffice to say, this story is as provocative as it is darkly funny. In an anthology that promises sleazy highlights Volk’s story receives the prize for delivering what may be the sleaziest. The Glamour Girl Murders by Mark West - The final tale takes the reader right to heart of swinging seventies London at the time of the notorious “Glamour Girl Murders”. Who is behind these brutal slayings? Bob Parker is determined to find out. Mark West always manages to very effectively capture any time period that he writes about and he’s done it again here. The streets of the city come alive in all their sinister glory. There is a monster on the prowl with a taste for the beautiful. Lovely. This collection is a wonderful [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/11/the-lives-of-tao-by-wesley-chu/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/11/the-lives-of-tao-by-wesley-chu/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 18:58:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Angry Robot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sci-Fi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wesley Chu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sci Fi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Lives of Tao]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3392</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When out-of-shape IT technician Roen woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it. He wasn’t  He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions – the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix – the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, Roen is having to train to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end up well… Any book that begins with a tense rooftop standoff swiftly followed by an unexpectedly dramatic escape has got to be worth a shot as far as I&#8217;m concerned. Spy type thrills and escapades are always a great deal of fun. The trickiest question though is how exactly do you make spies more exciting? Let&#8217;s be honest, they are quite exciting already. The answer, which The Lives of Tao successfully confirms, is to add two groups of ancient feuding aliens into the mix. I like Roen Tan. He’s spent his life letting things just happen to him; reacting, but never being proactive. I think it&#8217;s fair to say I found it pretty easy to relate. Meeting Tao has a profound effect on his life and anything suddenly seems possible. To paraphrase a very wise man* &#8220;The world you think you know is not real&#8220;. Just imagine, you&#8217;re living your life. Going about your business. You might even be a bit bored of the constant grind. Suddenly, your entire world-view is wrong and everything you thought you knew is fundamentally different. Working with Tao Roen is given the opportunity to become the best version of himself that he can be, sounds pretty damn tempting to me. Tao has spent many generations working with his different human hosts. Over the years, these symbiotic relationships have left their mark and he has developed a fondness for humanity. There is a real bittersweet note to his character. He has outlived so many hosts, yet he remembers everything about every single one. Each chapter begins with a short flashback that features some of Tao&#8217;s previous hosts. It’s a nice little touch that helps better round out his character. Wesley Chu has written a fun debut that acts as a perfect introduction to the struggle between the Prophus and the Genjix. We get to learn how these two groups have had a hand in human development from the very beginning. What excites me most about the premise of The Lives of Tao is the almost unending potential to develop into an on-going series. If the aliens have been around since before the dawn of man, then any time period imaginable is fair game to be included in future books, any historical figure for that [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Nightsiders by Gary McMahon</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/08/nightsiders-by-gary-mcmahon/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/08/nightsiders-by-gary-mcmahon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 11:09:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Dark Fuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gary McMahon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nightsiders]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3377</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Keep repeating, it’s only a story, it’s only a story, it’s only a story… Welcome to Number One Oval Lane, the last house at the top of the hill. Robert Mitchell thought he lived there with his wife and children, but he doesn’t. Not anymore. A new family—the Corbeaus—has taken up residence, and they are on a deadly mission for mischief. Soon Robert will understand the true nature of ownership, and he will discover that real life is nothing more than a story…a horror story. We&#8217;re playing games now. We&#8217;re just beginning. Robert Mitchell is an everyman character; he could quite easily be you or me. I&#8217;m sure anyone could empathise with the situation he finds himself in. You get the feeling that he&#8217;s almost ill-suited to modern life. He has been ground down at every turn and has nearly reached his breaking point. He just wants to be left alone to live his life in peace, but the world wants to intrude and deny him that simple pleasure at every turn. Each time he thinks that things are taking a turn for the better something always manages to come along and ruin that feeling of calm. Then on the other hand, you have Nathan Corbeau and his animalistic brood. They&#8217;re an earthy bunch who take what they want, when they want it. Rules and regulations just don&#8217;t figure in their world-view. For them, this is the land of &#8220;do as you please&#8221; and this is exactly what they intend to do. Things build to a tipping point and eventually all the impotent rage that Rob has kept bottled up comes bubbling to the surface. The two families clash in a spectacularly violent fashion. Gary McMahon continues to impress with each new tale that I read. His raw, often emotive, style is never boring and manages to both entertain but also remain frighteningly insightful at the same time. This particular story is just over a hundred pages long but it’s a surprise how much he manages to cram in. I was utterly fascinated by how he has so effectively captured the varying horrors that Rob and his family have to face. We learn a little of their back story and it is evident that they have suffered significantly already before we join them. In many respects, the family is already in a bad way and the incidents with the Corbeaus are just a catalyst. The writing skilfully plays on that common fear of home invasion, but manages to go much further than that. There is something primal about this kind of fear.  Where this story really succeeds is in capturing the horror of being helpless. If you enjoy short fiction then this could well be the novella for you, I&#8217;d heartily recommend it. This is small but perfectly formed dark fiction. Well worth your time. Nightsiders is published by Dark Fuse and is available now See larger image Nightsiders (Kindle Edition) By (author) Gary McMahon Release date April 2, 2013.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Penance by Dan O&#8217;Shea</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/07/penance-by-dan-oshea/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/07/penance-by-dan-oshea/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 11:31:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dan O'Shea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exhibit A]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Penance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3368</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Born and raised in Chicago, Detective John Lynch might just be about to die there too. Because one dark secret might be about to tear a whole city apart. A pious old woman steps out of the Sacred Heart confessional and is shot dead by a sniper with what at first appears to be a miraculous and impossible shot. Colonel Tech Weaver dispatches a team from Langley to put the shooter and anyone else who gets in the way in a body bag before a half century of national secrets are revealed. Detective John Lynch, the son of a murdered Chicago cop, finds himself cast into an underworld of political corruption and guilty secrets, as he tries to uncover the truth about what s really going on before another innocent citizen gets killed. In some weird cosmic synchronicity, I finish one book about a killer loose on the streets of Chicago only to pick up the next from my review pile and discover that it&#8217;s a book about a killer loose on the streets of Chicago. No need to panic though, the good news is that The Shining Girls and Penance could not be more different. Both are fun reads but, I&#8217;m glad to say, for entirely different reasons. (I’m not even going to mention the fact that the book I’m currently reading is also set in Chicago). My favourite crime novels are ones that mange to take what appears to be a relatively simple scenario, then throw you the literary equivalent of a curve ball. Penance does just that. On the face of it, this is just a single maniac with a gun killing random targets, but when you delve deeper you’ll find so much more. This novel is chock full of conspiracies, political in-fighting, power plays and back room deals. Detective Lynch is a solid lead character, but I have to admit that I was more interested in two shady government operatives who show up later on. Ferguson and Chen are part of Intergov, a blacker-than-black ops group who operate outside normal channels. Their partnership is one of the novels many highlights. Chen is described as a gun toting sociopath at one point, needless to say I warmed to her immediately. Where Penance excels is the plot development. What starts as a traditional crime novel, morphs into a thriller with a much larger scope than I expected. From the reader’s perspective it&#8217;s great stuff, you&#8217;re essentially getting two books for the price of one. You don’t just get Lynch’s police investigation, there is also a razor sharp political thriller in there as well. The other good thing is that all this clandestine cloak-and-dagger feels frighteningly believable.  O&#8217;Shea’s writing never feels over the top or outlandish, he keeps things very grounded. There is a realistic approach to the action scenes that works well. There are also a series of flashbacks that tie the new crimes with events that occurred in the nineteen seventies. John Lynch’s father, Declan, was on the force [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/03/the-shining-girls-by-lauren-beukes/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/03/the-shining-girls-by-lauren-beukes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 09:30:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Harper Collins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lauren Beukes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sci-Fi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sci Fi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Shining Girls]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3355</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chicago 1931. Harper Curtis, a violent drifter, stumbles on a house with a secret as shocking as his own twisted nature – it opens onto other times. He uses it to stalk his carefully chosen &#8216;shining girls&#8217; through the decades – and cut the spark out of them. He’s the perfect killer. Unstoppable. Untraceable. He thinks… Chicago, 1992. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Tell that to Kirby Mazrachi, whose life was shattered after a brutal attempt to murder her. Still struggling to find her attacker, her only ally is Dan, an ex-homicide reporter who covered her case and now might be falling in love with her. As Kirby investigates, she finds the other girls – the ones who didn’t make it. The evidence is … impossible. But for a girl who should be dead, impossible doesn’t mean it didn’t happen… Seems it&#8217;s time for another one of those book related confessions. I&#8217;ve heard good things about Moxy Land, and apparently Zoo City is a bit special as well, but with the exception of a single short story I&#8217;ve never actually read any of Lauren Beukes work before. This embarrassing admission leads me to the following question &#8211; why hasn&#8217;t someone taken me aside and told me what a fool I was being? Put it this way, I think I&#8217;ve read around twenty books so far in 2013 (I&#8217;ve got the exact figure written down somewhere!) and The Shining Girls is most definitely near the top of that ever-growing list. Kirby Mazrachi is truly fascinating lead character, filled with raw emotion and angst. She never holds anything back and you get a sense that this is the way she has always been. Kirby has a jagged almost brittle personality that you swiftly realise is mostly for show. This is an individual who has been violated and can&#8217;t find any closure on the events she experienced. She can&#8217;t do anything but keep looking for answers. Her sense of resolve and grim determination grows more and more palpable as you uncover her story. Kirby is angry about what happened to her but refuses to let it get the better of her. It would be a cold-hearted reader that doesn’t find themselves hoping, with each passing chapter, that Kirby succeeds in doing just that. Meanwhile Harper Curtis is the very antithesis of Kirby. He&#8217;s an enigma, a mystery that only Harper knows the answer to. A good fifty percent of the novel follows his actions and you slowly get to learn exactly why he&#8217;s doing what he is doing. I don&#8217;t think anyone could ever condone his actions but after a while I did at least feel that I could appreciate the forces that were driving him on. There is real insight into what motivates him to keep killing. It’s a testament to the author’s skill that I felt pity for someone so evil. In some respects, Harper is as much a victim as anyone else. While Kirby is driven toward justice [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Interview &#8211; Myke Cole</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/01/interview-myke-cole/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/05/01/interview-myke-cole/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 11:02:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Myke Cole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[D&D]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3328</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sometime guest reviewer, Sam Strong (@MrSamStrong) recently interviewed author Myke Cole (@MykeCole) on behalf of The Eloquent Page. Before I hand you over, I&#8217;d just like to thank to Myke and Sam for the great interview. Thanks guys. ~  ~  ~  ~ Arguably the best known of all role playing game (RPG) systems, Dungeons &#38; Dragons has spawned many clones, transferred itself into every kind of media imaginable and has become nothing short of legendary. The other week, Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, claimed that D&#38;D has literally destroyed lives. In response to this, Myke Cole, author of Control Point and Fortress Frontier (and hopefully the next one in the series real soon), tweeted and people responded: This struck a chord with me. The idea of imagination, focused through an RPG, as a transforming force is very powerful. I dropped Myke an email and asked if he&#8217;d mind answering a few follow up questions. Here are his responses: SS: What was your first RPG experience? MC: Playing the old basic D&#38;D boxed set with my brother in my mom&#8217;s basement. Yes, it&#8217;s true, I actually played D&#38;D in my mom&#8217;s basement. My brother didn&#8217;t have anyone to play with, so I was the guinea pig, and he quickly graduated to playing with his older friends, leaving me scrambling to find fellow players. That quest led me to fandom, and a sense of tribal identity that has defined me ever since. The irony? My brother stopped playing shortly afterward. For me, it became a calling. SS: Who was your favourite character to play and why? MC: I always played (and play) Fighters and Paladins. In March of 2011, Ethan Gilsdorf interviewed me for a piece on salon.com (you can read it here - http://www.salon.com/2011/03/09/dungeons_and_dragons_comes_back/). The point I made there was that the first step to reinventing yourself is imagining who you want to be. I was, like most nerds, a scrawny weakling who got the crap kicked out of him. I wanted to change that. Imagining myself as a warrior lit the path to becomeing one in real life. SS: What was the moment you realised the transformative power of imagination? MC: My mother (a professional in the museum field) had a curator colleague of hers submit an exhibit treatment on knights to me for comment (it was for a Children&#8217;s Museum). I was terrified, but I pretended to be a scholar, like my mom was, and wrote a detailed essay on where I thought the problems were. He enthusiastically told my mother that I&#8217;d provided more cogent feedback than several scholars in the field. It was then that I realized that if you pretended to be something hard enough, you could actually be it. It made me see that the impossible was possible. Everything that came after was a product of that revelation. SS: Has your career involved role-play as a learning tool? If so, how? MC: ALL careers involve role-play. Here&#8217;s an example: When I was first deployed to Deepwater Horizon, I [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>The City by Stella Gemmell</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/29/the-city-by-stella-gemmell/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/29/the-city-by-stella-gemmell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:16:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bantam Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fantasy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stella Gemmell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The City]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3319</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Built up over the millennia, layer upon layer, the City is ancient and vast. Over the centuries, it has sprawled beyond its walls, the cause of constant war with neighbouring peoples and kingdoms, laying waste to what was once green and fertile. And at the heart of the City resides the emperor. Few have ever seen him. Those who have remember a man in his prime and yet he should be very old. Some speculate that he is no longer human, others wonder if indeed he ever truly was. And a small number have come to a desperate conclusion: that the only way to stop the ceaseless slaughter is to end the emperor&#8217;s unnaturally long life. From the rotting, flood-ruined catacombs beneath the City where the poor struggle to stay alive to the blood-soaked fields of battle where so few heroes survive, these rebels pin their hopes on one man. A man who was once the emperor&#8217;s foremost general. A man, a revered soldier, who could lead an uprising and unite the City. But a man who was betrayed, imprisoned, tortured and is now believed to be dead&#8230; There is a corruption that reaches to the very core of The City. For generations there has been nothing but war. Countless thousands have lost their lives, as battle after battle has created nothing but more dead bodies. I rather like the way that this book is split into a number of sections, each one focusing on a different level of society. The story begins at the very bottom with those poor souls who can descend no further. They barely survive in the ancient ruined sewers, living in the darkness and filth. Next the action moves to the ranks of the Immortal’s armies. Finally we get to learn what is going on with the walls of the City itself. In each location we find numerous people who want to see an end to the current regime. Often when I’m reading epic fantasy fiction, there tends to be a standout character, not so in the case of The City. This novel really works because it’s an ensemble piece. There are a plethora of well-defined, superbly-executed characters that inhabit this novel. From Bartellus, the grizzled old man, who finds himself responsible for a child he never wanted, to Fell Aron Lee, the highly decorated soldier who has to face a growing realisation that the war he is fighting isn&#8217;t the just cause he thought it was. The author breathes real life into these individuals making it impossible not to get caught up in their lives. My only real criticism is that I don&#8217;t think that I could recommend this to anyone with a short attention span, there is so much going on here. This novel demands you pay attention to everything that is going on in every single scene. For example there are a couple of characters who, for plot related reasons which I&#8217;ll not divulge here, change their names. If you&#8217;re going to [...]]]></description>
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		<title>High Moor 2: Moonstruck by Graeme Reynolds</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/27/high-moor-2-moonstruck-by-graeme-reynolds/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/27/high-moor-2-moonstruck-by-graeme-reynolds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:43:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Graeme Reynolds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horrific Tales Publishing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[High Moor]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3270</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Time for another guest review, so without any further ado, it&#8217;s over to The Eloquent Page&#8217;s resident expert on all things werewolf, MadNad, for her thoughts on High Moor 2. The people of High Moor are united in horror at the latest tragedy to befall their small town. As dawn breaks, the town is left to count the cost and mourn its dead, while breathing a collective sigh of relief. John Simpson, the apparent perpetrator of the horrific murders, is in police custody. The nightmare is over. Isn&#8217;t it? Detective Inspector Phil Fletcher and his partner, Constable Olivia Garner, have started to uncover some unsettling evidence during their investigations of John Simpson’s past &#8211; evidence that supports his impossible claims: that he is a werewolf, and will transform on the next full moon to kill again. However a new threat is now lurking in the shadows. A mysterious group have arrived in High Moor, determined to keep the existence of werewolves hidden. And they will do anything to protect their secret. Anything at all. As Mr Cheesecake won the toss and got to review Graeme Reynolds&#8217; first book in this series, High Moor, it seemed only fair that I got first crack at the sequel, Moonstruck. If you haven&#8217;t read High Moor book one, this review may contain spoilers. The last book ended with a showdown between our hero, John Simpson, and his long-time nemesis Malcolm. It took me a while to get back into the story, as it has been well over a year since I read the first one. I would have liked a few more reminders of events in the first one, as once or twice I struggled to even remember who characters where by their names alone or what their part was in the story. Much like in the first book, the story in Moonstruck flickers back and forth between several timelines, so as the story unfolds, the characters stories and motivations are filled in. The opening chapter hits the ground running, full of action and thrills that really sets the tone for the rest of the book. The pace never really subsides as Reynolds&#8217; puts his characters through various emotional and physical mills. The action is explosive and relentless, the violence is gory and ferocious, yet it is far from mindless as it is underpinned by a superb and fascinating story. The story centres around two types of werewolves, ones that have some control over their bestial side, and those that don&#8217;t &#8211; the moonstruck. These are considered dangerous even by their own kind, as their crazed bloodlust only serves to endanger the rest of the werewolf community by potentially revealing their existence to the world. The werewolf community considers them vermin to be exterminated. John is moonstruck. He was infected by a moonstruck werewolf when he was a child. Over the years, he has learned to manage his condition, and taken the necessary precautions. In book one, he investigates a series of murders strikingly similar [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/17/mayhem-by-sarah-pinborough/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/17/mayhem-by-sarah-pinborough/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:17:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jo Fletcher Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Pinborough]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mayhem]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3261</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When a rotting torso is discovered in the vault of New Scotland Yard, it doesn&#8217;t take Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, long to realise that there is a second killer at work in the city where, only a few days before, Jack the Ripper brutally murdered two women in one night. Though just as gruesome, this is the hand of a colder killer, one who lacks Jack&#8217;s emotion. And, as more headless and limbless torsos find their way into the Thames, Dr Bond becomes obsessed with finding the killer. As his investigations lead him into an unholy alliance, he starts to wonder: is it a man who has brought mayhem to the streets of London, or a monster? Earlier this week @Madnad took a look at Poison by Sarah Pinborough. Only two days later and I&#8217;m reviewing another new release from her. We find ourselves asking the tricky question - Is it possible to achieve the double and have two great Sarah Pinborough books released within the space of one week?* When it comes to darker fiction there is something wonderfully evocative about Victorian London isn&#8217;t there? Foggy streets and dark lonely alleyways feel like the ideal habitat for a sadistic killer. At the tail end of the nineteenth century, the Empire’s capital is a city where life is often cheap and any maniac can go about his dreadful business relatively unmolested by the law. There are those however, that will stop at nothing to try and stop a murderer. Rather than concentrate on the investigations of the police, whose attentions are focused on Jack the Ripper anyway, the main narrative of Mayhem follows Dr Thomas Bond. The good doctor has become fixated on a series of crimes that are just as cruel as Jack&#8217;s gory work, but seem to bear a different signature. Bond’s growing obsession is at the core of Mayhem. He pushes himself to the limit of sanity while trying to uncover the truth. He is a haunted character, traumatic events in his past have left him all but broken. The only thing that keeps him going is this burning need to know what is going on and why. Barely sleeping, hardly eating he allows the killer to be become his entire world. Bond is not alone however, there are other poor souls who are just as desperate for answers. A timid Russian immigrant, Aaron Kosminski, walks the city streets trying to avoid what he feels is an inevitable confrontation with evil. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure watches every move that Bond makes. What force has drawn both a religious zealot and a troubled barber into this dark world? A word of warning, those of a nervous disposition may wish to consider something a little less graphic. This is a story that features a killer whose targets are exclusively female and Pinborough certainly doesn’t pull any punches. These were dark times, and there are plenty of violent deaths to emphasize that fact. In one memorable scene, a victim sits waiting for [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Poison by Sarah Pinborough</title>
		<link>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/15/poison-by-sarah-pinborough/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/15/poison-by-sarah-pinborough/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:35:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>pablocheesecake</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Fantasy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gollancz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Pinborough]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poison]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/?p=3250</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Time to kick off what I&#8217;m tentatively calling &#8220;Sarah Pinborough Appreciation Week&#8221; here at The Eloquent Page. I can think of no better way to begin than with a guest review so without any further nonsense, let me hand you over to my better half @MadNad.  It&#8217;s Snow White, but not as you know her&#8230; Take a wicked queen, a handsome prince, a beautiful princess, and a poisoned apple&#8230; &#8230; and now read the true story of Snow White, told the way it always should have been&#8230; Like a lot of adults, I don&#8217;t usually read fairy tales. However, due to the popularity of shows like Grimm and Once Upon A Time, fairy tales are now once again in vogue and are being read not only by children. In the first of what is a trilogy of adult fairy tales, Sarah Pinborough has written a version of Snow White that has enough elements in it to appear familiar to those of you who read this as a child, but is retold in a way that will open your eyes to questions that your younger self never knew it had. The story is set in a timeless fantasy world of multiple kingdoms that we expect to see in a fairy tale. The king goes to war, leaving behind his beautiful young queen alone with her step-daughter. The queen decides the key to making her new life bearable is to get rid of the beloved Snow White. For me, the most interesting aspect of this story was the queen. Pinborough successfully gives this often flat character some much needed dimension, and her motivation to destroy Snow White is more profound than pure vanity. The queen does not hate Snow White, not initially anyway. Snow White represents the freedom that the queen never had growing up in a strict court environment, before being forced to marry a man twice her age. Jealousy and resentment blossom in the queen&#8217;s heart. The queen&#8217;s nemesis is not the Snow White you&#8217;ve seen before. Put aside the twee images of a pretty maid frolicking with rabbits, fauns and bluebirds. Instead, you have a raw earthy heroine, who prefers breeches to dresses, rides like a man and likes nothing more than drinking and singing bawdy tavern songs with dwarfs. I actually found myself empathising with the queen far more than with Snow White. Her evolution from an insecure new wife to a cold and malevolent antagonist is completely plausible. The story elegantly tracks the transformation of the queen, even illustrating moments of potential redemption, but ultimately reveals the path leading to her eventual corruption There is a danger when writing something set in a faux medieval fantasy world that the speech could appear formal or overly archaic. It is a demonstration of Pinborough&#8217;s superlative control of the English language that she comes right up to the line, but does not cross it. This re-telling is definitely adult in nature. There are a few swear words scattered about but, [...]]]></description>
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