There are a lot of statistics tossed around about how important book covers are, and while we could argue percentages all day, I reckon most people would agree it’s the image on a book’s cover that plays the biggest part in the decision-making process when it comes to parting with our cash. But how much…
‘End As An Assassin’ by Lex Lander
End As An Assassin With the killing of a sleazy drug baron, hit man André Warner completes his final contract and heads for Geneva where he hopes to begin a comfortable retirement. Then on route to Monaco, he meets young and beautiful divorcee Gina, and finds himself contemplating a different future from the one he’d…
‘Raven Black’ by Ann Cleeves
Raven Black The beginning of a new year brings death to Shetland when the body of a young woman is found lying in the snow. But the murder also sparks memories of another girl who disappeared years before, and the focus of the community falls, once again, on simple-minded loner Magnus Tait. The police meanwhile,…
How to Write an Unfinished Novel
Not everything that ends up as a novel starts out as a novel. As Stephen King has said, you don’t know what a piece of writing will become until you write it. Might be a short story, might be a novella , or it might be an epic novel. And if it doesn’t go…
Blogging – The Other Way of Writing a Book
There are two ways of writing a book – the first one is the obvious route: start at the beginning and write until you get to the end. The other way is to write a book that isn’t a book at all – in fact, it’s a blog. Years ago, we used to occasionally read…
‘Barking at Winston’ by Barry Stone
Barking at Winston When battered rescue dog Bruce is adopted by a wild and wacky family, he finds his new owners have troubles of their own. As well as sharing several episodes from his own short life, Brucie uses his canine second sight to dig into the truth behind a complex tale of family life…
How to Be a Crap Writer
Back in April 2016, I started writing reviews of the books I read. This prompted me to look at adding a bit more variety to my reading habits. Now, that doesn’t mean I was suddenly going to start perusing the sort of books I wouldn’t normally touch with a barge pole, just one or two…
‘How to Be a Victorian’ by Ruth Goodman
How to Be a Victorian If you’ve ever wondered what life was like during the reign of Queen Victoria, you should either build a time machine, or get your hands on this book. Historian Ruth Goodman charts the Victorian experience from getting up to going to bed, and everything in-between. Goodman is a historian and…
‘The House of Silk’ by Anthony Horowitz
The House of Silk: The Bestselling Sherlock Holmes Novel Sherlock Holmes is dead and now his ageing companion, Dr Watson, also teeters towards death. With no-one left to answer to, the great detective’s biographer puts pen to paper one last time to document two very different, yet inexplicably connected, mysteries. When Edmund Carstairs turns up…
A Book Cover Paints A Thousand Words…
When I started putting ideas together for the cover of my middle-grade book ‘The House That Wasn’t There’, it’s fair to say I didn’t really know what I was doing. The problem was that, as usual, I’d come up with a title that intrigued me, but part of that intrigue meant I had to work…
Colin Garrow 