News

In this very personal post author Derek Farrell explains why The Little Matchgirl gets his vote to be included in our Christmas Special Edition - A Very Fahrenheity Christmas...   Marie Grimes – a cousin on my father’s side - was my Godmother. Marie was my aunt’s daughter, but the age gap between us meant I referred to her as Auntie Marie. She was almost impossibly glamorous for Dublin in the seventies and eighties: Marie had a job with the European Union, and lived in Luxembourg and Brussels, and jetted around European capitals at a time when people like me...

PROLOGUE 9.30 pm Thursday 31 March 1988 When they came for her, she fought. Hard. She kicked, scratched, screamed and spat at the men, grabbing at their balaclava masks… trying to find a way out. But there were five of them. And there was no way out. She shouted too, of course. And tried to scream. But the hand that covered her mouth and the forearm that cradled her neck were both strong and practised. The leader - she instinctively knew he was in charge - put his covered face next to hers. He put a finger up against the...

I thought I was finished with Joe Geraghty. I’d written three books with him in the starring role, a self-contained trilogy, which also captured the ridiculous rate of change being experienced in our shared home city of Hull. ‘Broken Dreams’ opens with Joe working in a detective agency with his mentor, Don Ridley, and Don’s daughter, Sarah. Struggling to find a place for himself, it’s something that increasingly gnaws away at him throughout the novel and into ‘The Late Greats’. By the time we reach the end of ‘The Crooked Beat’, Joe is walking off into the distance with his...

When  I realised we had the chance to publish the first 3 books in K.A. Laity's Chastity Flame series it took me all of 3 secs to get a contract in front of her to sign. I love these books. They're like the very best of Lauren Henderson, mixed up with a spoonful of Villanelle, a pinch of Modesty Blaise and a large dash of James Bond just to bring the whole mixture together. As you'd expect from Kate Laity (a tenured professor of literature) these books are beautifully written and devilishly clever. They're also light and funny and smart...

King of the Crows. Reviewed by Brian Callar of The Barking Book Blog. So.......what can you expect from King of the Crows? Well, I and a select few other bloggers have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to read it so without further ado may I present.........  I don’t even know how to start reviewing Russell Day’s King of the Crows to be honest, and even this review took several drafts, believe it or not! I think it is fair to say that it is probably one of the most unique books I have read in terms of...