Author: Michelle Moran
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Exotic, delicious and extremely compelling, 2008-09-16
This is a wonderful and powerful novel about one of the most powerful royal couples in Ancient Egypt. The story opens in the royal city of Thebes, where Pharoah and his family and courtiers are in mourning for the recently deceased Crown Prince Tuthmosis. Now his younger brother Amunhotep is the heir to the throne and must choose a Chief Wife as his queen. His mother, Queen Tiye, chooses her feisty niece Nefertiti, in the hope that she will be strong enough to rein in his arrogance and destructive tendencies and shape him into a good ruler.

The story is narrated by Nefertiti's quiet younger half-sister Mutnodjmet, who helps her sister to ready herself to travel to Thebes, and experiences for herself the delights of the royal palace and the luxury that comes with being the sister of the king's Chief Wife. But it soon becomes clear that Nefertiti is being corrupted by the power and ambition of her husband, and rather than keeping him in check she only encourages him, supporting him as he goes against thousands of years of Egyptian tradition, elevating a new God above the old protectors of Egypt, rejecting his first wife Kiya, destroying the temples and building the new royal city of Amarna to glorify Aten and turn the royal couple into deities. Families are destroyed, corruption runs rife and the outskirts of Egypt are threatened by invasion, but Pharaoh is too busy in his vain pursuits to notice anything outside of his own palace. Nefertiti's beauty and charisma enchant her people and her husband alike, but her selfish nature leads to a rift between the two sisters that will tear them apart and echo throughout Egypt. Ultimately, the inevitable happens, and despite her family's desperate attempts to avert crisis, Mutnodjmet can only watch in horror as the great empire of Akhenaten and Nefertiti self-destructs in a gripping and heartbreaking climax as Egypt fights back to reclaim its history.

This is a brilliant piece of storytelling. It is brilliantly researched, and although some fictional liberties have been taken (acknowledged openly by the author at the end of the book) it is so well grounded in fact that it hardly matters. The family tree at the start of the book was particularly useful in keeping track of family connections and grasping difficult names. Moran has entwined all that is known about the royal court of the Heretic King, as well as historical theory and intelligent guesswork, to create a complex and riveting novel full of delicious detail that brings the exotic Ancient Egyptian cities, palaces and domestic households to life. It is a whirlwind journey through the reign of perhaps the most famous Egyptian Queen of all time, spiralling along with her ambition until the sudden, violent and extremely moving collapse of the empire which shatters the reader even as it shatters Amarna. I savoured every moment of it - I was transported away from the British autumn into the warm, spiced Egyptian sunshine, cried bitterly all the way through the ending, and finished the book feeling slightly shell-shocked and more than a little sad that it had ended - always the mark of a brilliant novel.

I look forward to reading Moran's next novel, 'The Heretic Queen', this time about Nefertiti's niece, Mutnodjmet's daughter Nefertari, who married Ramses II and continued the family's connection to the royal throne...

Author: Stieg Larsson
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Excellent, 2008-10-05
For someone who normally reads one chapter of a book each night before bed, I found myself reading chapter after chapter with this one - it was so riveting I could not put it down.
Once the characters are developed in the first few chapters, the story takes on a pace which gets more and more exciting as it heads towards it's crescendo. Excactly as all good stories should be.

I can't wait for the next installment!

Author: Stef Penney
By Quercus Publishing Plc

A wonderful journey through the Canadian wilderness, 2008-09-22
`Tenderness of Wolves' is so well written, that for the first time in a very long time, I felt I was reading a book that richly deserved its prize (The 2006 Costa Prize, successor to the Whitbread). I was drawn in from the first page, savouring the writing and the descriptions. And for once, good writing did not get in the way of good story telling. The tale was gripping, although `Tenderness of Wolves' does not pretend to be a thriller.

That said, there was a sense of anti-climax after Mrs Ross finds her son, yet leaves him, in her search for the killer. For a while the story sags, as if Mrs Ross's new quest is a tangent or an afterthought, it simply does not seem as urgent as the quest for her son. Still, the narrative picks up again later, and even during the `slow' patch I enjoyed tramping around the Canadian wilderness, going where the author took me. It is a landscape that stayed with me well after I finished the book. Authentic or not, it certainly felt like a real place.

I liked the way that Mrs Ross's story was not the only plot-line, but that the book had multiple layers and a number of side stories (not quite sub-plots), which added texture to the book and gave it the feel of covering an entire community. I do agree with some of the other reviewers that the some characters were confusing but this was more because they were not individually distinct enough, than because there were too many of them.

The only irritant in a marvellous book was constant shifting between past and present tense. But even this could not detract from the pleasure of being in the northern wastes with Stef Penney.

Author: Jonathan Black
By Quercus Publishing Plc

A remarkable and comprehensive tour de force of the arcane, 2008-08-04
The result of nearly twenty years' research, this book is a remarkable, comprehensive tour de force of the arcane, superbly illustrated with colour and black-and-white plates, some of which have not been seen outside secret societies.
As Jonathan Black points out in his introduction, while modern pundits tend to discredit the Mystery schools, "this book will show that throughout history an astonishing number of famous people have secretly cultivated the esoteric philosophy and mystical states taught in the secret societies". He cites, for example, Bach, Beethoven, Cervantes, Charlemagne, Dante, Goethe, Joan of Arc, Kepler, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Milton, Mozart, Napoleon, Newton, Shakespeare, Voltaire, and George Washington, all of whom held beliefs and who adopted practices that are discredited today.
I have always been fascinated by the Comte de St. Germain. Described by Voltaire as "a man who knows everything and who never dies", he was capable of phenomenal feats, such as the dramatic demonstration witnessed by Cagliostro, mentioned by Black, and who seems to have lived for an indeterminate period. Held by some to be a charlatan, he nonetheless liaised with, and was respected by, many government ministers and royal families in Europe. Monarchs, including Louis XV, entrusted him with secret diplomatic missions.
"The remains of an ancient wisdom lie all around us," concludes Black, "in the names of the days of the week and the months of the year, in the arrangements of the pips in an apple and in the strangeness of mistletoe, in music [and] in the design of many public buildings and statues and in our greatest art and literature . . .
"Science sees idealism as having dominated history up until the seventeenth century when the process of discrediting it began. Science assumes materialism will remain the dominant philosophy until the end of time. In the view of the secret societies, materialism will come to be seen as a mere blip . . ."

Author: Philip Kerr
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Author: Sarah Lyall
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Author: Robert B. Parker
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Author: Phil Rickman
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Rickman does it again!, 2008-10-12
How does he do it? In his 10th Merrily Watkins mystery, author Phil Rickman has written another terrific story - this time involving a grisly murder, an archaeological dig, a best-selling atheist living in Merrily's parish under an assumed name, and endless rain that swells the river and threatens to inundate the village.

DI Frannie Bliss plays a prominent role in this tale, and other characters from earlier novels make an appearance in To Dream of the Dead - including Lucy Devenish - mentor to Merrily's teenage daughter Jane. And that despite the fact that Lucy is dead, and has been for quite some time.

I love this book, and look forward to Rickman's next Merrily Watkins adventure.

Author: Doug Harman
By Quercus Publishing Plc

An Absolute Must for the digital photographer. Updated 2008 edition., 2008-07-18
I took up digital photography recently and bought this book, after been diappointed with another photo book.
This book is a must for the person new at digital photography. It goes hand in hand with my Canon 400D.
The book is very up to date,last published in 2008. I wanted how to learn how to take good photos and not just how to work in the dark room or editing pics etc;
I wasn't diappointed. This covers the purchase of a camera, the lens you need, other accessories, photo techniques etc; There are even tips on most of the pages, things to do and not do!
This book is a great reference and a valuable read for the photographer.

I highly recommend this book, especially for the beginner to digital photography.

Author: Stella Rimington
By Quercus Publishing Plc

Best of the Four, 2008-10-09
Having now read all four of Stella Rimington's books, I think this is far and away the best. It is very well written, pacey, and with a strong plot that had me racing through to the end -- there is lots of action.The characters are well drawn and Liz, the protagonist, has become an increasingly alluring heroine -- resolute yet human, clever but intuitive as well. The repeat appearances of Liz's sidekick Peggy and Liz's boss Charles Wetherby are starting to give an ensemble feel to the cast which I like, but there are some new figures -- an embittered CIA officer named Bokus; a Mossad veteran who's seen it all -- who are equally intriguing.

All in all, I thought this was a great read.