The Almost Lizard by James Higgerson

James Higgerson’s debut novel follows a teenage boy whose habit of imagining himself in television soap operas develops from harmless fantasy into a cause for suicide. In a striking opening chapter, Danny Lizar announces that today is his 21st birthday…

Author interview – J.R. Crook

I reviewed J.R. Crook’s debut novel Sleeping Patterns on this blog a few weeks ago, and thought I’d follow up by asking the writer himself some questions. If you’re not familiar with the book, click here to read my review,…
Andrew Blackman, author of On the Holloway Road

As if by magic…

A sharp-eyed Amazon-watcher just emailed to let me know that my next book, A Virtual Love, has been listed and is available for pre-order. Now don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch – I wouldn’t ask you to go and…

Sleeping Patterns

The latest winner of the Luke Bitmead Award, the prize I won myself back in 2008, Sleeping Patterns is an intelligent, intriguing and ultimately rewarding book. It’s experimental in nature. The author, J.R. Crook, stated in an interview with his…

“The Generation Game” by Sophie Duffy

An interesting premise: the book starts with a woman in hospital talking to her newborn baby girl. She starts to tell the story of her life, beginning with her own birth in St Thomas’s Hospital in 1965 and going right…

“Ashes” by Matthew Crow

The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one – a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The reason? “Something to do”. The tone is set for the rest of the novel. Bleakness, lack of hope,…

Prize draw to win books

OK, I haven’t done any self-promotion on here for a while, so here goes: BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! Thank you. The reason for this outburst is that my publisher is running a special promotion today…