Tag: Line

Sue Reid – Mill Girl | Review

November 29, 2020
Authors P-T (By Surname)Fiction

Title: Mill Girl

Author: Sue Reid

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 224

Rating: 3.5/5

I read this book because it came with a whole bunch of others that I bought as a job lot on eBay. It stood out because it’s part of a Scholastic line that focusses on historical fiction, and it’s also pretty cool because it takes the form of a diary.

We’ve got a young female protagonist living in Victorian Manchester and who works in a Mill, and so you know going in that she’s going to have a pretty tough life. At the same time, the book’s clearly aimed at younger readers and so there’s nothing here that’s so intense that it would stop a parent from reading it to their kids.

But to be honest, the point here is more to educate kids about what it was like back in the day, and I think it does a pretty good job of that. Even though it’s written the way it is, in an episodic format based on diary entries, the author actually manages to do an impressive job of worldbuilding, and so it’s easy to feel as though you can smell the city.

Plus I’m originally from the Midlands, which makes me an honourary northerner. I was always going to like it. A nice find!

Learn more about Mill Girl.

Edward Lorn – Life After Dane | Review

June 15, 2020
Authors K-O (By Surname)Fiction

Title: Life After Dane

Author: Edward Lorn

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 268

Rating: 4.5/5

I’m probably quite biased here because this book was written by a BookTube friend and because my name’s in the title, so I guess it would almost be weird if I didn’t like it. I was also given a copy as a gift from someone who’d seen my wish list. But it also has a lot of the themes that I like, and the story line itself is cracking, a sort of paranormal thriller following the weird stuff that our narrator starts to experience after her son, the Truck Stop Dentist serial killer Dane Peters, is put to death by lethal injection.

This was very, very good for an indie book, although I don’t like the cover much. But covers don’t matter, and I was impressed by everything from the quality of the writing to the interior layout. I was also a big fan of the way that Lorn told the story using Dane’s mother as a mouthpiece. She’s perhaps the only person in the world who knows why he turned out like he did.

And then there are the religious themes, as well as the recurring motif of the hymn Amazing Grace. It’s funny because while I’m not religious myself, I’ve always found it interesting to read about religion in fiction. I’ve even dabbled with writing about it myself. The bottom line is that I’d recommend this if you’re interested in thrillers in general, but especially if you’re keen to support indie authors in a difficult marketplace.

Learn more about Life After Dane.