100 word review: Our Lady of the Streets, by Tom Pollock

 100 word reviews, books, reviews  No Responses »
Aug 202014
 

Pollock’s third trilogy winds up with a storm raging across fevered streets. It’s very difficult to talk about without spoilers, but let it be said that, although this is a cohesive trilogy, every book stands on, and as, its own beast, fundamentally different from the others, but fitting together in a whole.

Mater Viae is back, and she wants her city back, even if her taking it back will destroy it. Beth is being slowly killed by London, given the choice between starvation and poison, what should she choose? Pollock isn’t kind to his characters, but it’s a lovely ride.

Get it here (UK)

100 word review: The Glass Republic, by Tom Pollock

 100 word reviews, books, friends, reviews  No Responses »
Aug 022013
 

 

I admit loving The City’s Son. Inventive, joyfully snarky, compelling and fun – and a Kitschies nominee. The Glass Republic is by degrees darker and several steps more grown-up, and shows Pollock’s maturation as a writer. Principal attention shifts to Pen, the neglected, fascinating character. She goes to London Under Glass: the London that exists behind every mirror, trapping inhabitants in stolen glances, reflecting the best – and the worst – about London, Londoners, class, and race. She wrestles with internal and external demons. The book is hard to talk about without spoilers, but is is a more-than-worthy follow-up to fine first effort.

 

n.b. Tom Pollock is a personal friend of mine, and I sat and watched him write probably 1/5 of this book. That being said, I’m also terribly jealous of his talent for worldbuilding and structure and compelling page-turning narrative, not to mention his powerful brainbox. I’d give this review even without those things.

 

Get it on Kindle here (UK) or in the US in the autumn, sometime.

100 word review: The City’s Son, by Tom Pollock

 100 word reviews, books, reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 182012
 

Every now and then, you find a book that makes you want to look around corners, peer over walls, climb into wardrobes, and climb down manholes seeking the world that must be there. A book that makes you believe again, for a little while.

This is one of those books.

Beth, a graffiti artist is excluded from school, and finds a strange young man who lets her see that world, and she takes it, heedless of the cost

This is a YA book, ostensibly, but it treats its reader right, to good & evil, love & loss, life & death, and trains.

 

Jo Fletcher Books kindly provided a review sample copy.

 

Get it here (UK) or here (US) (on 2nd August 2012)