Bicentenary Boy by Mike Rothery

Bicentenary Boy is the story of a young man who wakes up in the 1950s with memories of being alive in another time and another world but is stuck in a psychiatric ward where no one believes him.

Joey Horne was studying medicine in England and learning the societal niceties of life in 1754 when his parents took him out of school in order for them all to move to America. On the voyage there they are attacked by pirates and Joey is forced to become one after his parents are killed. Life aboard the ship is fraught with danger and cunning people and one day, in an attempt to evade another pirate ship, Joey and the rest of the crew sail through a strange fogbank and land up in a world beyond a world.

In the 1950s you have Dani, a psychologist, who has been tasked to debunk his claims but everywhere she has gone to look for evidence, has turned up clues to back his story up. What on earth and who is she supposed to believe?

The blurb sounded very intriguing and I was drawn to the idea of a past life or a time traveller, however, I found the story quite hard to follow and I didn’t really get into it. It starts off with a voodoo ritual/burial that goes wrong and the words used to recreate the language and accent were difficult at times to understand. Then we get sent to a section in the school in the UK as well as the story in the psychiatric ward and it becomes muddled as to how it all fits together. Suddenly we are on the pirate ship and the author has really gone into the accents used so instead of concentrating on the story I was now trying to decipher what they were trying to say. When they move into the new world there are a number of new animals, people and concepts introduced so a lot of new made-up words used which created even more confusion. This really detracted from any pleasure I would have gained from the story itself, but at least the editing is good with no major recurring mistakes.

The world beyond the world was an interesting supernatural spin on the tale, but to me, the ending and the explanation of why Joey was dying in this world was stretching it a bit. An interesting idea but a book I wouldn’t read again. This might appeal to those who specifically like books depicting pirate travels with a supernatural twist and while there was nothing wrong with the story, it just didn’t grab me enough.

Thank you to Voracious Readers Only and the author for a copy of the book.

Remorseless by Will Patching

Remorseless is a gritty story of revenge and a man’s imprisonment, which alters his perceptions of morality.

Peter Leech has been in prison for half of his life for the murder of his parents and those that put him there agreed that he was a psychopath. But for the entire time, Leech has maintained his innocence and blamed his brother.

Dan Powers is a forensic psychiatrist and one of the people who advocated for his imprisonment. A shadow of his former self, Dan is battling to face reality as he mourns the death of his wife, killed in a car accident they were both involved in a few months previously.

Judy Finch is a strong woman. Well, she thinks she is until she meets Peter to assess whether or not he should be eligible for parole.

Peter develops a fixation on Judy and when he gets out into the world decides to make her his. So what if a few people stand in his way? Prison taught him to deal with his problems; permanently. Life is simple; find his brother and get his girl.

No holds barred. That’s pretty much how the book started and ended. You are taken on a rollercoaster ride of a story and very skilfully introduced to the characters and their roles. You feel Dan’s depths of despair as he battles to reconcile with the loss of his wife. You understand Judy’s frustration with her ex-husband and his treatment of their son. You try to follow the emotions and logic of Peter’s revenge-fuelled rage but can only feel nauseated at the depravity that he is willing to sink to.  

The author has very cleverly planted many seeds of doubt throughout the book as to who actually killed the parents, and at one stage you feel sorry for Peter as you are convinced his brother shammed it all to get rid of Peter and in the next instant you are fearing for the brother’s life as you learn what a psychopath Peter is. And the next thing the author turns the tables and you change your mind again.

I found the writing engrossing and even with the extreme level of violence I just kept reading one more page and one more page. No major grammatical mistakes interrupted the reading so you were able to absorb the story in its full visceral quality entirely. The descriptions had me on the edge of my seat and even though I was a little let down by the ending (I know, I know) I thought it was an interesting look at the manipulation of the system for those who claim to be rehabilitated. True, the romance aspect might have been a little contrived and the level of violence should have felled many of the characters before they actually succumbed to their injuries, but hey, it’s fiction. The one thing that I did have a strong aversion to though was the cruelty to animals.

If you are even remotely squeamish then this is definitely not for you, but if you want a gripping thriller, then here it is.

Thanks to Voracious Readers Only and the author for a complimentary copy.

Chasing Legends by Pippa Amberwine

Chasing Legends is the first in the Vampire Elixir series and is a fantasy book about vampires and dragons, aimed at the YA market.

Katie is a vampire—a rogue one at that. She and her band of fellow rogues are running from SCAR (Supernatural Crime Action and Rehabilitation) as they refuse to become one of the vampires infected by the virus forced to wear implants to control their thirst. Up to now they have been able to keep the thirst at bay with the help of dragon blood, but that has run out and it seems that one of their group is tapping into his primeval side. Not only that, but the virus is destroying human lives, including those not infected. So, what to do? Find another dragon of course! The group set about locating a witch to recreate the phenomena that brought the dragon through to Earth in the first place. What they didn’t take into consideration was the world the dragon came from...

The story did not delve very deeply into Katie’s character, and you only got to experience the tip of her emotions. You were often told how she felt, but never really shown. Jevyn (who came from the world beyond the rift), was a more complex character whose struggle with deep feelings for a friend and then a stranger and the internal battle of making sure his family remained on the throne while still keeping to his morals, played a huge role in his actions. The peripheral characters were essential to the story too, and I loved the description of the nerdy Derek’s outfit.

The writing style is extremely fluid and comfortable to read, with simple language and conversations that don’t become too involved, and it’s easy to absorb the book in a sitting. The editing was very good and no major mistakes interrupted the flow of reading. There were a few formatting issues which might have come up because of the eReader, and I did notice a backwards apostrophe and some capitalisation issues as well as an incorrect word or two.

While the book does not end on a cliffhanger per se, it leaves enough questions open that the story could go in a number of different directions in the second book. Will love prevail? Will friendship win the day? Will the rebel vamps be able to take on SCAR? What dodgy deeds is the witch planning? So many questions...

Thank you to Reedsy Discovery and the author for an ARC

Sepultura by Guy Portman

Sepultura tells the story of a sociopath named Dyson who works in Burials and Cemeteries and deals with people who irritate him in a very illegal way.

Dyson’s move to Paleham Council was under a cloud of suspicion, but he has hidden the dodgy details from his new co-workers well. Not that he interacts with them or even tries to remember their names. All he wants to do now is make sure his department runs smoothly and that everyone adheres to his strict rules regarding the graveyards. And of course, he wants to make sure his son receives a good education. The problem is that Free Lunch (as he names his ex’s current partner) is a lowlife druggie that shouldn’t be in her life and has some influence on his son. Well, he is not really a problem. Not when Dyson can get rid of him. In really small pieces.

Dyson’s mastery of Italian puts him in a group of people about to participate in a town swop, where councils who do the same work but in different countries come together to discuss strategy. Good wine, sexy women and picturesque surroundings. Sounds good, right? Well, there is one annoying co-worker, but Dyson knows how to deal with annoying people...

Boy oh boy was Dyson a guilty pleasure of a character! As much as you knew it was not the right thing to do to support him, each time the body count got higher and another annoying person was wiped off the earth you did a little happy dance. I loved the snarky character of Dyson and the way he saw things being so cut and dried. If you didn’t like something, do something about it. Obviously, this is not ok in real life, but in the book it really was funny. The town swop was an interesting idea but the paperwork and bureaucracy in Italy sounded like a nightmare. I hadn’t read the first one in the series but this book could be read as a standalone. However, the ending is a major cliffhanger, so be prepared to have many questions.

The editing was very good and only a few mistakes cropped up like the incorrect use of “here, here” and using wined instead of whined. Some things that you thought were mistakes turned out to be for effect like calling a person It or having a stutter when remembering the beginning letter of a person’s name. The one thing I couldn’t fathom though was using this to label a person: Mar-keting. Sometimes getting too clever with accents creates confusion.

I have never read a book in the transgressive genre before and didn’t know what to expect. I’m certainly glad I did as I loved it and will definitely be reading more. Thanks to Voracious Readers Only and the author for a copy of the book.