Lawless & the Flowers of Sin by William Sutton - Book Review

A Foundation for Fallen Women. A chess automaton. An impossible theft.

Reluctant inspector of vice, Lawless must take a fruitless reckoning of London's shadowy nether world. Hypocrisy, double standards: just what we expect from stuffy Victorian society.

But Lawless was not expecting the trail that his questions open up: from the erotic booksellers of Holywell Street down the darkening passageways of Haymarket bordellos to backstreet cast-offs of the high life.

When reputations are at threat, those running the show can be merciless in defending them.

Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Lawless and the Flowers of Sin is the second novel in the series, but it can definitely stand alone. It is my first book from this author, so I am not familiar with his writing style.

The plot is set in Victorian London, in 1863. Inspector Campbell Lawless goes into the world of the people that we see every day, but we don't notice them at all. Beggars, street musicians, ladies in brothels, erotic booksellers, each one of them walks among us, but we don't see them. Or we choose not to see. But these people are alive and have stories to tell. Stories of their hard lives, destroyed dreams, broken wings.

Sonata of the Dead by Conrad Williams-Book Review

It's four months on from the events of Dust and Desire... Joel Sorrell has recovered from the injuries he sustained in his fight with The Four-Year-Old. A body has been found, sealed into the dead space behind a false wall in a flat in Muswell Hill. Beheaded and surrounded by bloodstained pages of typewritten text, it is the third such murder committed by a killer known as The Hack. And it may be linked to his daughter's disappearance.

Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Conrad Williams is a brand new author to me, and when I started reading his book, I didn't know what to expect. This is his second book in the series but definitely can stand alone.

Book Review: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-The White Worm by Sam Siciliano

Sherlock Holmes and his cousin, Dr Henry Vernier, travel to Whitby, to investigate a curious case on behalf of a client. He has fallen in love, but a mysterious letter has warned him of the dangers of such a romance. The woman is said to be under a druidic curse, doomed to take the form of a gigantic snake. Locals speak of a green glow in the woods at night and a white apparition amongst the trees. Is there sorcery at work, or is a human hand behind the terrors of Diana’s Grove?

Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I admit, I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes'adventures and was very pleased when I heard that there were some new books including him as a main character. This is my first Sam Siciliano's book, but definitely, won't be the last.

This adventure of his starts with a visit from a client. A young man who is going to be married soon receives a letter as a warning for his future marriage. His fiance is a lovely charming young lady, but there is a curse that runs in her family for many generations. Once upon a time, there was a giant white worm that tormented the people in the area. Until one day one man defeated it, married and had children on that same property. But there was the curse, always something bad happened to the male members of the family. It was the punishment for the man who defeated the worm. The young man loves his bride-to-be but is also scared that something bad would happen to him. So he asks the great detective for help. Sherlock and his cousin Dr Vernier travel to Whitby in a place called Diana's Grove to solve the mystery of the white worm.

Book Review: River Road by Carol Goodman

Nan Lewis—a creative writing professor at a state university in upstate New York—is driving home from a faculty holiday party after finding out she’s been denied tenure. On her way, she hits a deer, but when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. Eager to get home and out of the oncoming snowstorm, Nan is forced to leave her car at the bottom of her snowy driveway to wait out the longest night of the year—and the lowest point of her life… The next morning, Nan is woken up by a police officer at her door with terrible news—one of her students, Leia Dawson, was killed in a hit-and-run on River Road the night before. And because of the damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan finds herself shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident six years prior. When Nan begins finding disturbing tokens that recall the death of Nan’s own daughter, Nan suspects that the two accidents are connected. As she begins to dig further, she discovers that everyone around her, including Leia, is hiding secrets. But can she uncover them, clear her name, and figure out who really killed Leia before her reputation is destroyed for good?

* Copy provided by the publisher in exchange of an honest review. *

„She hates that road. It took her daughter away. That blind curve is taking her life again, and again.“

Nan is a professor at the university, she teaches creative writing. After a party at the college, she goes home by car, slightly drunk. Driving in the dark, she hits a deer. She sees a deer. When she walks out of the car, the deer is nowhere to be found. She goes into the wood to look for it. Drunk and overwhelmed with the painful memories on her own, she falls asleep under a tree. After a while, she wakes up and goes home. Next morning, she finds out that one of her students died that night in a hit-and-run accident. It can't be her! She hit a deer, for God's sake! But it was dark, and she has been drinking. Nan can not be sure of anything.