(BLOG TOUR)[REVIEW] Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett @JoFletcherBooks @robertjbennett

Robert Jackson Bennett is an author I’m familiar with because I bought his first novel City of Stairs two years ago for my birthday so when I saw that he had a new trilogy coming out I jumped at a chance to see what his writing is all about. I’ve yet to read City of Stairs but after Foundryside I am sure I’ll be reading more of him.

I don’t usually read fantasy books but I am always interested in trying new genres and seeing how I’ll like them so this since this is my first fantasy in a long time. Read the synopsis below:

She thought it was just another job. But her discovery could bring the city to its knees . . .

The city of Tevanne runs on scrivings, industrialised magical inscriptions that make inanimate objects sentient; they power everything, from walls to wheels to weapons. Scrivings have brought enormous progress and enormous wealth – but only to the four merchant Houses who control them. Everyone else is a servant or slave, or they eke a precarious living in the hellhole called the Commons.

There’s not much in the way of work for an escaped slave like Sancia Grado, but she has an unnatural talent that makes her one of the best thieves in the city. When she’s offered a lucrative job to steal an ancient artefact from a heavily guarded warehouse, Sancia agrees, dreaming of leaving the Commons – but instead, she finds herself the target of a murderous conspiracy. Someone powerful in Tevanne wants the artefact, and Sancia dead – and whoever it is already wields power beyond imagining.

Sancia will need every ally, and every ounce of wits at her disposal, if she is to survive – because if her enemy gets the artefact and unlocks its secrets, thousands will die, and, even worse, it will allow ancient evils back into the world and turn their city into a devastated battleground.

Considering that this is my first fantasy book in a while I have to say that I genuinely enjoyed being lost in the world that Robert Jackson Bennett has created. What I liked the most is how skilled the author is at world-building and how he describes certain things. I find the author to be hugely creative and loved reading his descriptions but at times I did feel like they were long and tiring. Our main character Sancia Grado is such a good one because of her strength and resilience – what I loved most about her character is her intelligence. Oh I have to mention Clef! Oh how much I adored Clef (Mr. Clef :D)! He was so funny and I loved the bond that Sancia and he made because it added more depth to the story. I loved the whole magic system that Bennett has created and its complexity. There are also many other characters in this book who are smart, brave, crafty, some who are pure evil! who will enrich your reading experience. The beginning of the book grabbed me because it started off with a heist and it was so action packed that you couldn’t look away. There were parts where I felt the book dragged and that made me frustrated at times but the last two-hundred pages were very fast-paced and action packed. This is the first book in a trilogy called Founders and the book leaves a satisfying ending and also leaves us with something more to look forward and discover in the second book.

What can one say? Foundryside is a very good action-packed, cleverly written and thought out book that every fantasy lover should read.

I would like to thank the publisher Jo Fletcher Books for sending a copy of this book my way in exchange for an honest review. All opinions written here are my own and haven’t been influenced by anything.

My rating: 

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Robert Jackson Bennett is a two-time award winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, an Edgar Award winner for Best Paperback Original, and is also the 2010 recipient of the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, and a Philip K Dick Award Citation of Excellence. His fifth novel, City of Stairs, is in stores now. He lives in Austin with his wife and son.

Find him on: Website, Goodreads and Twitter.

[REVIEW] The Aladdin Trial: A Burton and Lamb Thriller by Abi Silver @EyeAndLightning

I was contacted by the publisher to review this book and when I read the synopsis it immediately made me want to read it. I love reading thriller/mystery genre and what stood out with this one for me is the setting and a very interesting murder case – a hospital cleaner gets blamed for the murder of an artist who happens to be a patient there! How exciting!

The Aladdin Trial begins with a, you guessed it, murder of an old woman who went in for  an operation and was recovering at the hospital. Her death is very mysterious because where her body was found doesn’t make sense if you try and explain it with suicide – she couldn’t have jumped from a balcony because of her condition as well as age so there must be something more to it. Ahmad – the cleaner – gets thrown into jail and is awaiting trial for the murder of Mrs. Hennessy – the old woman – but there is something more to it. Mrs. Hennessy had children to whom she left an inheritance of two million pounds which could give one of the children the motive for her murder or the doctors might have something to do with it since one of them is trying to cover something up. To help us find the truth we have Constance Lamb and Judith Burton – two brilliant and flawed characters – who are trying to prove that Ahmad is innocent and there’s something more to Mrs. Hennessy’s death.

I have to apologize for my bad synopsis summary but you can always check out the Goodreads page for this book and get the better version of the synopsis. The chapters in this book are short and very readable. I found The Aladdin Trial to be such a thrilling read that after about 50% made me want to read on and don’t stop until I find out what exactly happened to Mrs. Hennessy. At times The Aladdin Trial fails with chapters finishing abruptly or being out of place which some people might find annoying. I found Ahmad to be so interesting as well as the mystery around his wife and sometimes I wanted to yell at him because I wanted him to tell more to Constance and Judith about his life and events that happened that night. The resolution of this book was very good and I found it satisfying.

The Aladdin Trial is a thrilling book that will make you want to read and read so you can find out the truth behind the mysterious death of one of Hampstead hospitals patients.

I would like to thank the publisher Eye/Lightning Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions written here are my own and weren’t influenced by anything.

My rating: 

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Yorkshire-bred, Abi Silver is a lawyer by profession. She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and three sons. Her first courtroom thriller featuring the legal duo Judith Burton and Constance Lamb, The Pinocchio Brief, was published by Lightning Books in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. Her follow-up The Aladdin Trial, featuring the same legal team, was published in 2018.

Read more about Abi and her work at www.abisilver.co.uk.

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[REVIEW] The Incurable Romantic and Other Unsettling Revelations by Frank Tallis @LittleBrownUK

It’s no secret that I enjoy reading psychology non-fiction books and that I’m interested in Psychology. Tallis’ book intrigued me because of the subject matter it deals with – love, to be precise: obsessive love. I rarely read and find books on this subject so I was glad I stumbled upon it.

While reading this book I wrote notes on the first half of the book because many chapters were interesting and contained a lot of information I found useful. The Incurable Romantic contains twelve chapters and each of them deal with a different problem and aspect of love. The stories inside this book are based on real life cases the author worked on with the names of people changed in order to protect identities of his patients. I really don’t want to make this review long but I tend to write essays on non-fiction books so I’ll try and be efficient. In the preface of this book Tallis writes about earlier understandings of love and ‘lovesickness’. He uses a philosopher called Lucretius and looks at his definition on both terms. The conclusion he comes to is that both views on love and lovesickness haven’t changed much in nearly two-thousand years – which means that these feelings have been around for a while. The first chapter of this book The Barrister’s Clerk examines love that is very obsessive to the point where our subject can’t get the person she has feelings for out of her mind. We are talking about stalking here – where the person she likes doesn’t share the same feelings, the person is married but still our subject can’t get these facts into her mind. Tallis explains that the subject suffers from de Clerambault’s syndrome which is a form of a delusional disorder where the person believes that another person is infatuated with them. We see how this obsession ruins her life because she can’t accept that the other person doesn’t share the same feelings. In the second chapter called The Haunted Bedroom we meet our subject, an old woman who lost her husband and who feels very depressed and lonely. When Tallis interviews her what she says is very peculiar, he asks her ‘What do you miss most about your husband?’ and she replies ‘The sex.’. She begins to see her husband everywhere, in the house, in the park. Here Tallis explains something called PBHE or Post Bereavement Hallucinatory Experience. Furthermore, Tallis explains that people we loved [who passed away] have a subconscious place in our mind which can cause us to see or feel the persons presence because we were with them for a long period of time. Seeing the people we were close to makes us more comfortable and helps us grieve better. In the third chapter called The Woman Who Wasn’t There we see how the Delusional disorder: Jealous type takes effect on a woman who becomes obsessed with her boyfriend to a very extreme point. She becomes very jealous because her boyfriend doesn’t text her (even though he texts her every chance he gets), doesn’t tell her where he’s going etc. What we see is how a relationship can be ruined because of jealousy that consumes our subject. This chapter is very relatable to me because I find myself to be the same but not to that extreme. I found Anita’s concerns to be something I would be asking myself too but there were certain parts where her actions couldn’t be justified. There are many interesting stories in this book but sadly I can’t share them because this review would be long. Even though this book doesn’t offer solutions to problems each subject has it gives a fresh perspective on things like obsession, delusion, addiction, love.

I would complain about the lack of resolution to this problem because I really wanted to know more about each person I encountered in this book but psychoanalysis and therapy, as Tallis says, often fail when it comes to resolving certain problems but what they do is offer new insight into problem they try to cure.

It is safe to say that The Incurable Romantic is a book that offers an insight into obsessive love as well as historical background on psychological and biological factors that influence love and how people perceive and express it.

To anyone who enjoys reading books about psychology and is interested in human nature and how we perceive love should read The Incurable Romantic.

I would like to thank the publisher Little Brown UK for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions written here are my own and weren’t influenced by anything.

My rating: 

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Dr. Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has held lecturing posts in clinical psychology and neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry and King’s College, London. He has written self help manuals (How to Stop Worrying, Understanding Obsessions and Compulsions) non-fiction for the general reader (Changing Minds, Hidden Minds, Love Sick), academic text books and over thirty academic papers in international journals. Frank Tallis’ novels are: KILLING TIME (Penguin), SENSING OTHERS (Penguin), MORTAL MISCHIEF (Arrow), VIENNA BLOOD (Arrow), FATAL LIES (Arrow), and DARKNESS RISING (Arrow). The fifth volume of the Liebermann Papers, DEADLY COMMUNION, will be published in 2010. In 1999 he received a Writers’ Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and in 2000 he won the New London Writers’ Award (London Arts Board). In 2005 MORTAL MISCHIEF was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award.

Find him on: Website, Goodreads and Twitter.