P.D.R. Lindsay's Blog, page 12

Blog Interviews: Prakash Vir Sharma

Seems to me there are a lot of places for Indie authors to link up and chat to each other.
Prakash is just one of many Indie authors supporting Indies with cheerful interviews and  opportunities to talk about their books.
Prakash Vir Sharma https://pvsharmablog.wordpress.com/au...

Review: novel: The Unknown Ajax

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It's a shame that the younger readers, who were not alive to read a Georgette Heyer hot of the press after it had been serialised in the Ladies Home Journal and had to be specially ordered, have no idea that Ms Heyer created the genre. No one else had set popular fiction in the Regency period and her Regency novels burst on the scene as original, new and delightful.

Ms Heyer researched the period carefully, collected volumes of contemp...

Review: non-fiction 'Rise of the Rocket Girls' by Nathalia Holt

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Loved the film, but this book is better because we get all the 'girls' and their stories from the earliest days as human calculators right up to rocket launch.

Author Nathalia Holt allows these women to tell their stories about how they were the mathematical people who worked out the details without which missiles and rockets could not have flown. They were calculators...

Review: The Keeper of Lost Thing by Ruth Hogan

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ruth Hogan has produced a charming, pleasant read based round an unusual and original idea. Her hero is an old man, Anthony Peardew, who lost his love just before their wedding and he also lost her special gift to him. Devoted all his life to her he also devotes a lot of time to finding things, labelling them and saving them in the hope that they will find their owners and he might find her gift, a medal.

His housekeeper, Laura is a...

Review 'H is for Hawk' by Helen Macdonald

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald




This was a prize winning non-fiction or perhaps faction work. The writing was literary, elegant and a little self indulgent at times. The author is training a hawk, a goshawk, trying to recover from the shock of her father's sudden death, and trying to sort out her life.

The method of telling her story is to look at T H White's life and his book, The Goshawk and talk, discuss and compare her training of her goshawk with his. I found this annoying at times. It se...

Review YA novel 'Realms of the Gods'

The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This YA novel is the last in a four part series about Daine and her magical gift with animals.
The whole series is well worth reading and lovers of magical fantasy will enjoy them. Tamora Pierce writes with good sense, creates likeable characters, has an exciting plot and her monsters and villains are shudderingly nasty. There's a bit of a moral too, but well hidden. If you are kind and thoughtful and work hard against prejudice and...

Seems to me that Writer's Choice Writers are having another good year.

Writer's Choice is popping the champagne corks again. We have done this every year of our existence and this year we are celebrating G.J. Berger's success.Yet again we have a winner. This is our fourth year and G.J. Berger's 'Four Nails' has won the 2016-17 San Diego Historical Fiction Award. Brilliant work, Mr Berger. 'Four Nails' is a great read. And G.J. Berger won the same award in 2012-13 for his first novel, 'South of Burnt Rocks, West of the Moon'. Congratulations for giving Writer's C...

Review of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabelle Dalhousie series

A Distant View of Everything by Alexander McCall Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


These novels are a great series. Each novel is a comfortable, thoughtful read but this is not the series of novels for those wanting a great adventure and fast pace story. Isabelle is a philosopher and whilst she has interesting, often complicate, human problems to solve she is not dodging death or hunting villains. She is mulling over the problems we all meet and have to deal with. Each book in the series also looks...

Refview of 'The good People' by Hannah Kent

The Good People by Hannah Kent




Historical writers seem to fall into camps. There's the Kings and Queens lot, the Use famous people lot, the Ancient Chivalry lot, the Let's Use Obscure History lot, and the Rub The Reader's Nose In It lot. I think I sadly have to put Hannah Kent in the last lot.

They are the authors who can't see a road without making it dusty, rutted and full of pitfalls to lame horses or people -summer - or muddy - winter - full of muck and mess, filth, ordure, robbers and nas...

Spread the Good News!

Writer's Choice is popping the champagne corks again. We have done this every year of our existence and this year we are celebrating G.J. Berger's success.Yet again we have a winner. This is our fourth year and G.J. Berger's 'Four Nails' has won the 2016-17 San Diego Historical Fiction Award. Brilliant work, Mr Berger. Congratulations for giving Writer's Choice another award. We have had competition successes every year of our four years' existence, and whether it says something about idiots...