Looking for a Good Read?

Independence by Kate Kasserman has been out for awhile, but I don't think I ever wrote about it here on my blog. It began as a screenplay, which Kate then thought worked better as a novel. The fast pacing and visual qualities from its screenplay origins do make a good novel. A fast read with accurate history worked deftly into the story.

Bankers, and Bigger Monsters (yes, that comma is in the right place) by Georgia Gunn is a fascinating look at greed. Set in the southern part of the USA, this modern fable offers an accurate and chilling account of contemporary greed. Excellent reading but, if, like me, you are squeamish about horror and violence, fasten your seat belt before you read.  This is first novella by Georgia Gunn, but as an experienced author in other genres, she handles this mixed fantasy horror satire genre so adroitly that I could not put it down.

Georgia Gunn's second novella is a work of fan fiction--the grown up way of making up more stories after you have finished a book that you liked. Silo: Ink is a good read--no violence, but suspense and you don't need to have read Silo to follow the story. Silo:Ink held my interest but would also be interesting to young readers--readers in that nebulous age of grown up reading skills and younger interests. The heroine in Silo: Ink, like all the main characters in the works of both Kate Kasserman and Georgia Gunn are stong, independent women.  Although I don't actively seek out books with strong female characters, nonetheless it enhances the pleasure of a good story for me when they are as diverse and well drawn as the leads in these three stories.

And waiting in the wings, a novella I had the good fortune to read in draft, Serve in Hell.

While I'm making recommendations for some of my favourite reads (all the above are available from Amazon), let me recommend a web site of book reviews by authors, including some by myself as guest editor and Kate Kasserman. The book reviews are good reads in their own right and also offer good choices for reading or re-reading. www.booksquawk.com

I tried to make links to all those titles but my technoskills shrank when I had more than one choice for links, so please go out to amazon.com or amazon.co.uk and have a look for these.