My Review (4 stars out of 5) The classic story of the girl in the red hood gets a makeover in this tale of woodcutters, wolves, witches, fae folk and magic. Following the great shaking of the Earth, a multitude of characters gather in a quest to find the Chosen One and stop the red…
Category: Folk Tales
‘Sight Unseen’ by Sandra Ireland
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Struggling with the demands of her work as a shop manager, part time storyteller, and witch-tour guide, Sarah Sutherland must also deal with looking after her elderly father. Living in a house once occupied by Alie Gowdie – a woman executed as a witch during the time of…
‘The Promise Tree’ by Elisabeth J Hobbes
My Review (4 stars out of 5) Eighteen-year-old Edwin lives with his grandfather – a man who appears not to like his grandson, though the reasons are unclear. Haunted by memories of a mysterious girl and a sycamore tree, Edwin is grateful when the old man allows him to escape to Yorkshire to stay with…
‘The Sol 3 Agenda’ by Brian Kitchen
My Review (4 stars out of 5) On his way to Cornwall in 1969, John Trevaskis encounters a prehistoric stone which glows with a strange blue light. Finding himself teleported into some sort of alien craft, he encounters a robot. Meanwhile, John isn’t the only person to experience life-changing events. Discovering that Earth is in…
‘Queen of Eventide’ by Matthew Ward
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) Back in her childhood home, Maddie Lincoln tries to take control of her life. But when a series of strange events befall her, she finds herself drawn into a mysterious other world that lingers in a dense mist on the edge of the town. A bizarre meeting…
‘Thin Air’ by Ann Cleeves
My Review (5 stars out of 5) A group of friends travel to Shetland to join the celebrations when one of their number gets married to a local. But following the wedding party, one of the women disappears. When she is found dead, cops Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves launch an investigation. Learning that the…
‘The Unmaking of Ellie Rook’ by Sandra Ireland
Review (5 stars out of 5) When a phone call interrupts her gap year to bring her home to Scotland, Ellie Rook is faced with the news that her mother has perished after plunging over an infamously dangerous waterfall. Without a body, Ellie and the rest of the family try to make sense of the…
‘Forgive Me’ by Kateri Stanley
My Review (4 stars out of 5) Amid lots of twists and turns this book reads like a mix of horror, fantasy and paranormal, with the narrative going off in different directions every five minutes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – but for me it made the plot a little hard to follow…
‘Scottish Witches’ by Lily Seafield
*** This is a collection of factual, and no-so-factual, tales of Scottish witches, ghosts, superstitions and folklore, and ranges from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth. For the most part, the stories are about witches and the various confessions, trials and punishments dished out to them by a society that believed ordinary folk could…
Author Interview – Elizabeth Jade
Children’s writer Elizabeth explains how living with Aspergers Syndrome has influenced her writing… Do you write to please your readers or to please yourself? Actually, I write to empty my head before it explodes – well that’s what it feels like sometimes. My head is full of story ideas, part written stories, or sometimes what…
Colin Garrow 