Book after Book

By Anita Mir Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: As India hurtles towards Partition, in Lahore's ancient inside city, Amrau Dar is not thinking about politics. She is waiting for a prediction about her son, Awais, to come true. Awais discovers not a secret garden but a secret city and his beloved sister, Maryam, discovers the world of maths. Fearing that the prediction has gone wrong, Amrau takes a series of decisions that will change all their lives. How did this book end up in my hands? I followed its serialisation as it appeared on The Pigeonhole . Was it a page-turner? Every day for ten days I received an instalment of the book in my inbox and I dutifully read it. I didn’t have a problem keeping up with the schedule but I must admit that I struggled with the novel itself and – were it not for references to a culture I am extremely intrigued by – this might have been a DNF for me. Did the book meet my expectations? At one point, a character in the book said ‘Mit...

By Amy Lord Published by Unbound Digital   Synopsis: What if reading the wrong book could get you arrested? In a decaying city controlled by the First General and his army, expressing the wrong opinion can have terrible consequences. Clara Winter knows this better than anyone. When she was a child, her father was taken by the Authorisation Bureau for the crime of teaching banned books to his students. She is still haunted by his disappearance. Now Clara teaches at the same university, determined to rebel against the regime that cost her family so much – and her weapons are the banned books her father left behind. But she has started something dangerous, something that brings her to the attention of the Authorisation Bureau and its most feared interrogator, Major Jackson. The same man who arrested Clara’s father.  With her rights stripped away, in a country where democracy has been replaced with something more sinister, will she be the next one to disappear? How d...

By David Quantick Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: GO WEST is a novel about Charlie Bread, self-styled Antiques Whisperer and forgery hunter. When Charlie is sent on the trail of a mysterious document that may have been written by the inventor of Peter Pan, his life becomes a road movie full of pursuit and intrigue, soundtracked by old John Peel shows, the beautiful Penelope, and a game of high road hide-and-seek all across the West Country. In a world where nothing is what it seems, Bread has to find out the truth – before the truth finds him out. How did this book end up in my hands? Another awesome serialisation by The Pigeonhole , which I am now officially addicted to! Was it a page-turner? The serialisation spanned ten days and I was comfortable with the reading pace. I sometimes would have loved to be able to read more but I appreciated the time I had to make up my own conjectures!  Having read the synopsis, did the book meet my expectations? ...

By Michael J Ritchie Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: English teacher Dexter feels like he’s being taunted by the universe. Everywhere he turns he’s accosted by wedding invitations, housewarming parties and tables for two. Every last one of his friends is settling down with their other halves, while Dexter spends his evenings marking schoolbooks with his ginger cat for company. The thing is, he doesn’t even mind being single; he just wishes his friends were too. After another wedding ends in a drunken disaster, Dexter is musing on the situation and wondering what he’s going to screw up next, when he gets the shocking reminder that he’s not the centre of the universe. An alien spaceship has landed on the continent and when first contact is made, it’s anything but friendly. Humanity’s numbers dwindle immediately, and the survivors are left to do exactly that – survive. Dexter gathers his friends and they all set off on a mission across the country, each with the goal of p...

By Tabatha Stirling Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: Welcome to the black heart of Singapore’s maid culture, where a woman’s life is cheap in one of the richest countries in the world. Here are the voices of the unheard, of maid and employer, of village girl and city dweller. Follow Lucilla, Ma’am Leslie, Shammi and Madame Eunice as they strive, each in her own way, to exist in a country in which dark shadows lie beneath its pristine exterior. The lives of these women are woven together by a narrative which is always candid and often brutal, as it explores the effects of loss, madness, abuse and hope during a woman's life and in society as a whole. How did this book end up in my hands? I have read the online serialisation of this novel via The Pigeonhole . Was it a page-turner? Every day, for 10 days, I received a link to that day’s instalment with an estimated reading time of 25 minutes. Whilst this gave me time to savour the book, get to know the voices of...

By Jessica Duchen Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: When a swan crashes through her window at the height of a winter storm, journalist Mitzi Fairweather decides to nurse the injured bird back to health. But at sunset, the swan becomes a woman. This unexpected visitor is Odette, the swan princess – alone, adrift and in danger in 21st-century Britain, entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Bird by day, human by night, and with no way to go home, she remains convinced, to Mitzi’s distress, that only a man’s vow of eternal love can break her spell. Mitzi is determined to help Odette, but as the two try to hide the improbable truth, their web of deception grows increasingly tangled. Can they find a way to save Odette before it’s too late? How did this book end up in my hands? I have read the online serialisation of this novel via The Pigeonhole in December. Was it a page-turner? I would have loved to have a copy of this book to devour in one sitting as having...