The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 224

The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters

Goodreads Blurb: It is Christmas, A.D. 1141, Abbot Radulfus returns from London, bringing with him a priest for the vacant living of Holy Cross, also known as the Foregate. The new priest is a man of presence, learning, and discipline, but he lacks humility and the common touch. When he is found drowned in the millpond, suspicion is cast upon a young man who arrived with the priest’s train and was sent to work in Brother Cadfael’s garden. Indeed, he is soon discovered to be an impostor. To Brother Cadfael, now falls the familiar task of sorting out the complicated strands of innocence and guilt.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: My first experience of this story was through the Cadfael tv show, and I have to say I enjoyed the book far more. There’s a bitterness, and surprising sexism in the show’s interpretation – and it’s adding of useless secondary characters – that just isn’t there in the book.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 213

Johnny Alucard by Kim Newman

Goodreads Blurb: DRACULA COMES TO NEW YORK: Kim Newman returns to one of the great bestselling vampire tales of the modern era. Considered alongside I Am Legend and Interview with theVampire as one of the stand-out vampire stories of the last century – this brand-new novel is the first in over a decade from the remarkable and influential Anno Dracula series.

Newman’s dark and impish tale begins with a single question: What if Dracula had survived his encounters with Bram Stoker’s Dr. John Seward and enslaved Victorian England?

Fallen from grace and driven from the British Empire in previous instalments, Dracula seems long gone. A relic of the past. Yet, when vampire boy Johnny Alucard descends upon America, stalking the streets of New York and Hollywood, haunting the lives of the rich and famous, from Sid and Nancy to Andy Warhol, Orson Welles, and Francis Ford Coppola, sinking his fangs ever deeper into the zeitgeist of 1980s America, it seems the past might not be dead after all.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: I find this book by far the creepiest of all the Anno Dracula Series – if for no other reason then just how human and banal the evil is. Sure this is a world where Vampires are common place but don’t mistake me it’s the humans that are the actual terrifying monsters.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 212

Aftermath by Chuck Wendig

Goodreads Blurb: As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but he’s taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical-genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: A good exciting book, not quite as engaging as some of the more recent publications – but an excellent start for the Disney Star Wars extended universe.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 211

The Shinning by Stephen King

Goodreads Blurb: Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: I think I like the ending of the book much more than the film – even if it’s not quite as creepy. It’s more hopeful for the living rather than focusing on the tragedy of the dead.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 210

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

Goodreads Blurb: A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he’d either dreaded or hoped for.

(Goodreads Blurb)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Very well written, with some interesting ideas on how people would cope with the end of civilisation. It is dated in its main character’s attitudes and prejudices (with some particular distressing racism at the beginning). However, I do find it a perfect argument on how you don’t have to like the main character to enjoy the book.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 208

Dead Water by Ann Cleeves

Goodreads Blurb: Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series with this stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow. The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn’t want to come to the surface. In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain’s most successful crime writers.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Good to see Jimmy start to get back on form after the horrific end of the last book – an excellent read throughout with an ending I once again never saw coming.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 207

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Goodreads Blurb: When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son-and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly car. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth-more terrifying than death itself-and hideously more powerful. The Creeds are going to learn that sometimes dead is better.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Okay Stephen King, you win, I’m now terrified of pet cemeteries – we can add it to the list. Joking aside this was an excellent, if terrifying, book – with such a feeling of character in every word it almost felt like a true story. And isn’t that a chilling thought.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 206

The Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere by Phyllis Ann Karr

Goodreads Blurb: In The Idylls of the Queen, Phyllis Ann Karr takes an incident (the murder of Sir Patrise) from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and creates an intelligent, complex, and fascinating mystery novel perfect for fans of historical mysteries, of British legends, and of fantasy.

Queen Guenevere is giving a dinner to honor King Arthur’s knights when one guest, Sir Patrise, falls dead of poison. The dead man’s cousin accuses the Queen of murder, and she is taken away, to be held until her trial by combat. If her knight-champion wins, Guenevere will be declared innocent and freed; if he loses, she will be burned to death as a murderer. She is unlikely to survive the trial. Most of Britain’s mightiest knights were at the dinner, and therefore cannot fight for the Queen. Her champion and secret lover, the invincible Lancelot, has vanished. And, as Sir Kay realizes, trial by combat determines only is who is the better fighter, not who is guilty. Kay knows the Queen is innocent and an unsuspected murderer is loose in feud-filled Camelot–a murderer who intended to kill a person or persons other than the obscure knight Patrise, and who is poised to kill again. With the trial only days away, Kay joins with the great knights Gawaine and Gareth and their half-brother, King Arthur’s bastard son Mordred, in two quests: to find the missing Lancelot, and to uncover the true murderer.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: For anyone who’s ever read the old King Arthur stories and become increasingly sick of perfect pretty knights being held up as ideals of shivery just because the narrative says so. 100 percent safe for Sir Kay Lovers.

Amazon : The Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere by Phyllis Ann Karr

The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 205

Big Bad by Lily Anderson

Goodreads Blurb: Demondale, Callifornia, 1999…Like Sunnydale, but whole lot more evil.

Step into this alternate reality, where chaos reigns supreme. The Mayor’s sun-shade has created permanent darkness over Sunnydale, fully opening the Hellmouth once and for all. Now the newly christened Demondale has become a safe haven for vampires, beasts, and all types of ruffians. It’s never been better to be bad.

Aspiring supervillains (and super nerds) Jonathan and Andrew attempt to hold their own in a town full of monsters, while three-hundred-year-old vengeance demon Anya is just looking for something to give her life purpose again, spending her days working at an evil juice bar. But soon word gets out that there’s a new Big Bad on the scene, one more powerful and more destructive than anyone who has come before. She, of course, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And she’s hell-bent on rooting out all of this reality’s evil by any means necessary.

Now Jonathan, Andrew, and Anya must recruit a team of Demondale’s most notorious villains—including Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, and even Ripper the malevolent magic shop owner—in order to save their world. But it’ll be no easy feat to put their pride and differences aside and stop the worst thing that has ever come to town: good.

Written by acclaimed author and Buffy super fan Lily Anderson, this novel brings together Buffy’s most devious and beloved villains from the Trio to the Whirlwind to Anya, Glory, and Vampire Willow. This is one apocalypse Buffy fans are not going to want to miss!

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: A good writer can make you feel sympathy with everyone – well Lily Anderson is freaking Amazon because I was actually routing for these demons.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 204

Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves

Goodreads Blurb: Murder can strike more than once…

Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. It’s a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust.

Challenging to live on at the best of times, with the autumn storms raging, the island feels cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped, tension is high and tempers become frayed. Enough to drive someone to murder…

When a woman’s body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isles bird observatory, with feathers threaded through her hair, the islanders react with fear and anger. With no support from the mainland and only Fran to help him, Jimmy has to investigate the old-fashioned way. He soon realizes that this is no crime of passion—but a murder of cold and calculated intention.

With no way off the island until the storms abate, Jimmy knows he has to work quickly. There’s a killer on the island just waiting for the opportunity to strike again.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I don’t know what else to say either than … oh my God, that ending! That fucking ending! And I mean that in the best kind of way.

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