Paradise Girl

What if the song: "If you were the only girl in the world..." wasn't just a romantic song from a long-distant era?

What if it were your reality? It is the reality for Kerryl Shaw. Aged just seventeen, she lives with her family on an idyllic and remote farm in the heart of the Pennine Mountains.

But then comes the devastating plague. But wouldn't the Shaw family be safe in their farm? Sadly, even they family succumb to the plague, one-by-one until only Kerry is left.

She knows that it is only a matter of time until she, too, falls victim to the mystery plague that has destroyed humanity.

So she decides to write a diary to a notional person she has dubbed Adam.

As all services start to breakdown the loneliness of her dreadful situation begins to weigh very heavily on her and her mind begins to crack.

She hears her name being called in the darkness of the night, animals attack her, she visits town and is assaulted, strangers outside the farm suddenly vanish and things appear and disappear. And to her, Adam becomes a real, rather than an imaginary person.

She finds text messages on her phone. But how can this be, when there is, apparently, nobody left to text her?

The she gets an invitation to meet a mystery person. Should she? What would happen if she did? But then again, what would happen if she didn't?

Paradise Girl is written by Phil Featherstone and it is published by Matador at £8.99 and can be bought at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

Tender is the Scalpel's Edge

Tender is the Scalpel's Edge is a new non-fiction work by consultant NHS surgeon Gautam Das.

He draws on his over four decades of work at the forefront of medical care involved with healthcare within busy NHS hospitals.

He touches on all aspects of  his professional life from his time as a medical student, right through to working as a vital part of a highly disciplined team of healthcare workers working together to save the life of a patient and what happens when the patient cannot be saved.

Although a detailed account, the author is extremely sensitive in how he tells the various stories that he covers.

From self-doubts if he is even suitable to be training as a medical doctor to learning that not only did he have what it took to become a medical doctor, he was also capable of continuing his training, this time as a surgical trainee, until he eventually was at the peak of his profession, a consultant surgeon.

From the moment I opened the book I was immediately drawn into a world of urgent surgical procedures, of patients in need of urgent, lifesaving urological surgery by Mr Das and his team of highly trained professional medical staff.

We also read of Mr Das' early days learning his surgical skills in India -he was the winner of a gold medal for surgery at Medical College- and of how he had to fight off the bed bugs that infected the rooftop hostel shared by the hospital's surgical residents, charmingly described as a "doctor's chummery" by Gautam Das.

We follow Gautam Das through his career in India and also in Britain, when, following his Master of Surgery qualification, he left India in 1979.

In 1981 he was admitted to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh and he was awarded the Surgeon-in Training Medal of the College in 1988, before continuing on to obtain the Specialist (FRCS (Urology).

He was appointed Consultant Urological Surgeon in Croydon in 1990, a prestigious post he held until his retirement in June last year, 2016.

From 2005 to 2010 he also worked as a Pelvic Cancer Surgeon at St George's Hospital, London.

He has not fully retired, however, as he remains a Trustee-Director of the South East England Cancer Help Centre.

The book is a very human and humane account of his life as a surgeon and anyone with even a passing interest in this subject will benefit from this book. It would probably make a welcome addition to the bookshelves of any medical student or surgeon.

It is published by Matador at £9.99 and is obtainable at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

A LIfe Untold

Zara Heart wakes up in a hospital.

She is bewildered and totally disorientated. Utterly discombobulated, as one might say.

Why is she there? What happened to her? Who, actually, is she?

Who is the woman she sees linked to the life support equipment? Who is the worried man who is sitting at her bedside?

All will be revealed when she meets the Head Assistant to the Angel of Death, AKA the D. A.

He is a surprisingly charismatic fellow who tells her that she has seven days left to live, but first he will show her the previous seven days of her life.

But is her death inevitable? Will she journey to the Hereafter or is her time on earth not yet over?

And who will decide? And why did the angel visit her?

The book is by Dallaa Moussallati and costs £8.99 from Matador and is available for purchase at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

The Silent Partner and other stories of truth

This is an interesting collection of short stories from author Juliet Castle, with illustrations from Jaye Gray.

The stories are obviously written out of great compassion and wisdom and love, there are stories of love, of devotion of loss and of redemption.

They are all written in a style that touches on the poetic and they speak directly from the soul of the author to the soul of the reader.

From the story of The Silent Partner (he is always there, but always silent) to stories of heartbreak and of pure love, every aspect of human life and emotion is to be found within these short stories.

And they are short. Very short in some instances, yet and yet... the truth is that even these stories, the shortest of these short stories, contains more wisdom and truths than is to be found in many much, much longer works.

You will read and re-read these stories over and over, always learning something new from them.

It's published by Matador at £8.99 (£12.99 hardback) and you can purchase it here at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

A Life Between Us

A Life Between Us is a new novel from author Louise Walters.

It tells the story of two sisters, one who has been dead for 40 years.

Due to a childhood accident, Meg, twin to Tina Thornton, dies. 

And for the next four decades, Meg carried a devastating secret, the fact that she blames herself for the death of he twin sister.

Until one day, one fateful day, during a visit to her elderly Uncle Edward and his sister, Lucia, hard, bitter, Lucia, she makes a discovery that completely shatters all that she thought she knew of the day that her sister dies.

She knows how her sister died. But does she? Does she really remember what happened, or are her memories not true?

And Tina is not the only member of her family who harbours some fairly dark secrets of their own.

Exactly how did Meg die? Did anyone kill her? Or was it a tragic accident that took her life?

Tina also examiners her relationships with the rest of her family, Uncle Edward, Simone, her French aunt and her estranged parents.

It is a compelling novel of family rivalries, dysfunction, loss and pain.

It's published by Matador at £8.99 and can be bought here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

Condition

Condition is one of those thriller novels that grabs the reader by the throat and will not let go.

The story begins in 1966 and RAF Flying Officer Dan Stewart is in trouble, he has been involved in a 'plane crash and he is literally watching his body being consumed by the fire that is raging through the cockpit of his plane.

He awakes from a coma in hospital some six months later, to be greeted by his wife and his daughter, Claire.

But where is his daughter Lucy? And is it his imagination or is there something going on between his wife and Doctor Adams, the medic in charge of his case?

And why can he not recall the mission that he was taking part in when his plane crashed?

And there was the puzzle of his injuries. He had suffered almost 100% burns in the fire. And had survived. How was that even possible?

 And how was it that when he saw his utterly horrific injuries in the hospital, the medical staff, apparently, could not?

And if he had been in a coma for six months, how come his accident had only occurred two weeks before he came out of his coma?

And what of the second accident, whilst he was under the care of the hospital that had, apparently, taken place?

He seems to be hallucinating, but which of the events that are taking place are real and which are the hallucinations?

Who can he trust? His wife? The Doctor? His nurse?

And what medical treatment do they want him to take? What is it? What is the purpose of it?

Dan doesn't want to take it. Is this due to paranoia caused by an injury to his brain? Or does he have a genuine reason for not wanting to take them?

Are his hallucinations and weird dreams a product of his illness, whatever that is, or are they trying to convey some sort of a message to him?

It's said that the truth will set you free, but what if the truth that is, apparently, being hidden from Dan, was so monstrous that it would kill him?

And what were the red pills prescribed by Doctor Adams actually designed to treat?

And what, exactly, is this hospital for? What conditions do they deal with? Burns and severe physical traumas, or is it a facility for treating neurological conditions?

Are the staff, or some of them, lying to Dan and his family?  

And why are all the other patients, including a child, called Alice, all suffering from almost exactly the same devastating burn injuries that are, apparently, afflicting Dan? And how was it that the sarcastic patient Gary knew which patients, including Dan, were not taking their red pills?

And why can't Dan's family see his horrific injuries?

If he just started taking the red pill again, all would be well, he has been assured. But if that were so, why had he stopped taking them in the first place?

The basis for this novel (the first in a series of three) are some rather unpleasant medical experiments undertaken by the military, those experiments are still very highly classified, so classified that the author can only allow a hint of them to be shared.

The novel is, according to Alec Birri, "disturbing science fiction based on disturbing science fact."

This has got to be one of the best science fiction books that I have read in 40 years, in fact it reads like a book written at the height of the British Science Fiction explosion. Maybe this is the start of a new renaissance for British SF?

But don't take my word for it, buy this book at  https://goo.gl/wdCFDG for £7.99.

It is published by Matador and I am eagerly awaiting the subsequent books in the series.

Whiter Than White

Whiter Than White is a novel by veteran Pakistani police officer and writer J. J. Baloch.

It tells the compelling story of Hoor who is a faithful, Pakistani woman who lives her life within the confines of the society in which she exists.

It tells of her personal journey through life, how she protects her honour and her womanhood, bit J. J. Baloch also uses the story of Hoor who make penetrating observations on the issues of how women are treated within Pakistan.

The author takes several themes and deals with them all extremely well, women's rights, or lack thereof, how women are often treated badly by the legal system and society in general, even to the point of being punished when they have actually not committed any crime.

The book is interesting as it looks at the problems that women face in Pakistan (a place where misogyny is real and very dangerous) and is written by an insider.

It is published by Matador at £8.99 and can be bought at  https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.