As anyone who has heard me speak about books and reading will know, I’ve never really been a great fan of vampires and werewolves. However, in recent years I’ve found some books that prove exceptions to this rule: Tommy’s Scream Street series being one and Marcus Sedgewick’s My Swordhand is Singing being another. Now I can add another title to that list – Changeling by Steve Feasey.

I think the reason I enjoyed this book so much was that while there were gory bits in it, this book did not pretend to be a creepy horror story. It is more of a traditional heroes and villains style action adventure where the main character is a werewolf fighting alongside good vampires and sorceresses against evil vampires and demons. It’s super-heroes and super-villains in another guise and I’ve always been a sucker for that sort of premise.

The storyline in Changeling rattles along at breakneck pace, with just a few pauses to catch your breath before winding up to the big final confrontation of good and evil. It’s an easy read, that boys in particular will enjoy. Although I’m late to the party, I can highly recommend this for anyone looking for an action-packed romp featuring many of your favourite monsters!

Someone Else's Life - Katie Dale

To my shame, I admit I’d never heard of this condition before reading Katie’s cracking debut novel, but it’s certainly made a mark on the map of my consciousness now. Her story revolves around the repurcussions created by one misplaced act of kindness that leads to a web of lies and misunderstandings that impact a whole network of people. At the centre of the maelstrom is Rosie Kenning.

When Rosie’s mother, Trudie, dies of Huntingdon’s disease, she is terrified. Huntingdon’s is a degenerative hereditary condition and there is a fifty percent chance that she may have inherited it. However, to her shock, Rosie discovers that Trudie was not her biological mother – a revelation that brings both relief and devastation in equal measure. Her world is shattered. Her life feels like it’s been nothing but one big lie. Rosie needs answers and closure, so she embarks on a quest to find the truth. Unfortunately, the truth is not always comfortable.

This is a tale with more twists and spikes than a barbed wire fence. Every time you think you’ve got the situation all mapped out in your mind, new revelations spin the story in a whole new direction. I think it fair to say that the story-line will appeal more to girls than boys, though awareness of Huntingdon’s is something that should be highlighted to both. I will be surprised if this book does not find its way on to award shortlists. It’s gripping and pacy with a strong plot that will certainly win Katie an army of avid readers. It is a bonus that it will also serve to heighten public awareness of Huntingdon’s disease, which makes it a particularly worthwhile story. Bravo, Katie. An excellent debut novel – I’ll be looking out for more with interest.

Scream Street launches in Japan next week – with these incredible covers!

The year is 1910. A young boy called Sig Andersson is sat in a cabin north of the Arctic circle with only the frozen corpse of his father for company when there is a knock at the door. A dangerous man is outside. A man from his father’s past. A man who will do anything to find the gold he thinks Sig’s father possessed. But Sig knows nothing of any gold and as the man presses him harder, all he can think about is the Colt Revolver hidden in the storeroom.

This is a superb read. If you’ve never read anything by Marcus, I’d say this is a great book to start with. It certainly won’t be the last time you’ll be seeing me talking about his work here. If I gave star ratings (which I don’t) this would get the full five.

It’s hard to compare this book to anything else that I’ve read in the fantasy field. I found the constantly unravelling prophecies regarding the children drew me through the story. In particular my growing desire to work out which characters were really helping the children, and which ones had a hidden agenda, kept me reading and thinking all the way to the end. And no, I didn’t guess the identity of the main villain, so as far as I was concerned, he remained suitably cloaked in mystery until the big reveal at the end.

This was a well-constructed mystery story with plenty of colourful characters and a constantly evolving plotline to hold the reader’s interest. If solving mysteries is your preferred type of reading, then why not go and buy yourself a copy of QuickSilver by Sam Osman? See if you can do better than I did at working out who the villains are!

That people are out there tracking down strange, amazing, otherwise-impossible-to-find things and showing them to the world is probably what I love most about living in the internet age. But what was new in 2011 for me was that much of the music that thrilled me this year reached me in the form of compilations.

Independent music suppliers Boomkat are brilliant at finding and recommending music. Their compilation site 14Tracks has been an absolute highlight of my year…

Every week brings a new themed selection – always interesting, sometimes nothing short of stunning. If you’ve time to spare (warning! it’s addictive!) check out the 14Tracks back catalogue: it’s full of treasure. Examples? Concrete Phantoms collects jaw-dropping experimental music from back when sampling was done by splicing tape: I’d read about this music but had no idea how to go about hearing it, so I was (and continue to be) astonished and delighted by that one. Other 14Tracks favourites of mine include the teeth-whiteningly awesome industrial racket of No Hat, No Boots = No Job, and whenever I want to feel like I’m in a seedy Italian horror movie – which is often – A Giallo Thriller has me covered.

Despite the blow of losing most of their stock in a warehouse fire during the looting in the UK back in August, self-styled ‘B-Music Specialists’ Finders Keepers Records continued to dazzle me this year. I already loved their perfectly-preserved pick of ’60s/’70s Persian pop, Pomegranates, and lots of other musical goodies from them besides. But then came this…

Bollywood Bloodbath is blinding. That’s all I’m going to say. Hit this link and hear for yourself.

My third and final compilation recommendation comes in the form of a book: Seasons They Change, by Jeanette Leech…

With the passion of a fan – but also with the precision of someone determined to do right by its creators – this book introduced me to a world of great music that I’d known next to nothing about. New favourites for me now found through Seasons They Change include this, and this, and this! For further details on this excellent book and a link to an accompanying Spotify playlist by the author, click here.

What amazing music am I going to hear for the first time in 2012? Here’s looking forward to finding out. Hee hee hee!

Sam

This is a gripping drama for teens with great characters, a hard-hitting storyline and plenty of thought-provoking issues to explore. Until now the only books I’d read by Linda were for much younger children, but she makes writing for older look effortless. With sharp dialogue and a fast-moving plot, there is enough in this tale to keep even the most reluctant reader entertained. It gets a big thumbs up from me and I’ll be sure to look out for more books by this author in future.

For Look inside feature go to Amazon

Liam O’Connor is plucked from certain death aboard the Titanic. Maddy Carter should have died in an aircraft disaster in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026. Together they form a cell of Timeriders – an interesting team with diverse skills and backgrounds, well drawn characters and interesting, clearly defined roles in the story. I’m sold on this. The writing is sharp. The ideas, whilst not exactly new, are well executed with a distinctive style that is appealing. This is a series I will certainly be recommending widely as an action-packed read for boys and girls aged 10+.

What would you do if you realised someone had changed the outcome of World War 2? Would you have the guts to leap back in time and try to put things right? Get it right and it’s life as usual – terrorists, capitalism, burgers and Justin Bieber. Get it wrong and … well, you wouldn’t want to do that!

Scream Street – or Trouille-la-Mort as the series will be known (which, according to Google, translates as Funk Death) – has been translated by Anouk Journo-Durey, and gets exciting new covers.  Check out the new look Luke, Resus and Cleo get for Fang of the Vampire and Blood of the Witch…

Guest Blogger Laura here, bringing you another snippet of Monsterliciousness!

My partner in crime Christian recently found this poetry book from his childhood:

Apparently it used to completely horrify him. Quite right too! Honestly, it’s scaring me a little even now.

This is down to terrifically terrifying writing from poets such as Ted Hughes, Roger McGough, Ogden Nash and J.R.R. Tolkein. Coupled with equally odd and utterly disturbing imagery from Charles Fuge. . . just like this:

This..

And this guy..

  ..who reminds me of this guy:

Apart from thinking how much this would have fascinated me and scared the living daylights out of me as a kid, it also makes me a little sad.

Sad because I once had my own childhood monster book which freaked me out and i’d LOVE to discover it now. But I presume it was given away without my knowledge. I remember so vividly picking it out from the mobile, fold-away, shiny silver bookcases in my primary school assembly hall, when the book fair came to visit. It was a collection of short monster stories (that’s short stories about monsters, not stories about short monsters!). They were all fantastic but the one that scared me the most, above all others, was about a seaweed-covered monster who lived under an up-turned boat on a pebble strewn beach.

Does anyone else remember this book?

What books from your childhood used to really scare you?

Have you recently found a book from your past that brought back strange memories?

Do you have a book at home now which totally creeps you out?

Sleep tight

____

Monstrosities

Charles Fuge

9780099673309

(1989)