Are We Doing the Stelvio Today?

 
Are We Doing The Stelvio Today? is a very compelling account written by biker, blogger and adventurer Martin Smith.

Readers will join Martin on an exhilarating journey through the Alps of France, Switzerland and Italy by motorbike.

Cheadle, Cheshire-based Martin spent his formative years on the rear of his dad's bikes. Eventually he went on to own his own motorbikes, but at some point bikes lost out to cars and he bought his first four wheeled vehicle.

Later on he decided to put right the error of not getting his full motorbike licence and sorted this out in 1991, but it wasn't until several years later that he got around to buying another motorbike.

Several years? Well, 22 years later to be exact, when he decided with grown up children and a highly successful career as an IT consultant, that it was time to take up biking, again. First was a Kawasaki ZX636, which, a year later, was replaced with a BMW S1000RR.

His bike rides gradually became longer, weekend day trips grew into weeks as far afield as the Highlands of Scotland and Martin decided that change was required once again. This time? Sports riding was to be replaced with the life of an adventure bike rider and the BWM was replaced with an R1200GS Triple Black. 

On this bike Martin has seen much of the British Isles and sometimes much further afield.

Martin has blogged about his adventures, helpfully outlining his routes for the assistance of other bikers. Having found his writing wings he progressed to writing articles in specialist magazines. And out of this came his first book. 

Owners of this book will be able to make use of Martin's abilities to create workable and practicable itineraries. They'll also have a damn good read, too as he has a very good, readable style. 

It's £9.99 from The Book Guild and with Lockdown issues currently getting in the way of Christmas present hunting, it's a great stocking filler for the biker in your life. Or it'll make a perfect self present!

The Notorious Third Lord Lucan: An Embattled Life

 In his book The Notorious Third Lord Lucan: An Embattled Life scientist, author and biographer Tom Blaney provides an interesting look on the life of the Third Lord Lucan.

Who was the Third Lord Lucan? And why was he considered to be "notorious"? And why might his life have been viewed as "embattled"?

Blaney's interest in the Third Lord Lucan when he lived in an apartment within Laleham house, which had been the home of the Third Lord Lucan.

Blaney alludes to the more recently famous seventh Lord Lucan, a troubled professional gambler who, after being implicated in the murder of the family nanny and the severe injuries to his wife vanished, never to be seen again.

However the third Lord Lucan is the subject of this book and in a number of ways including his involvement in the Crimean War as an officer, including the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade.

Blaney acknowledges a previous book published in 1953 The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith. Woodham-Smith points to certain character flaws within the makeup of the third Lord Lucan. In her book she brings attention to the fact that Lord Lucan had a very bad reputation as an absentee landlord in Ireland. With arguably good reason he was known as "the Great Exterminator" due to his actions and inactions as a landowner. He also had a reputation as being an army officer of a less than glorious reputation, especially during the Crimean War.

Lord Lucan's reputation was traduced by the book written by Woodham-Smith and in the 1968 film The Charge of the Light Brigade (based on that book) but was he really as bad as he was portrayed? Detailed and extensive research undertaken by Blaney indicates that the truth is somewhat different to that previous portrayed by Lord Lucan's detractors. 

He has worked hard to provide a more balanced and less hysterical view of the third Lord Lucan. He has drawn a more full and far more accurate picture of Lord Lucan. Yes, as with everyone of us humans, he had flaws but he was not, as Blaney proves admirably, not the monstrous caricature foisted on the public by those who should have known better in your reviewer's opinion.

The book is illustrated with contemporary images and will be much admired by those with a love for history and high quality research.

It is published by Matador in hardback at £20. 

Luck

What would you do if you had the uncanny gift to influence other people? To get them to do your bidding, without them even realising what was happening to them? Or why they were doing what they were doing?

This was the situation facing Daniel in the new thriller from Californian-born author and scriptwriter Chris Coppel, Luck.

Daniel learns that his strange power can be used for good or for ill. As his ability grows in strength, so does Daniel's desire for acceptance and power.

How can Daniel achieve his ambitions? He eventually realises that the best vehicle for his ambitions would be the political stage of the United States of America. 

Once he moves into the murky world of politics he soon realises that he no longer needs to concern himself with influencing the few. Now he can begin to unleash his power to influence others to control the minds of the mass population.

However, can he do this without it having any determinantal impact on his own psyche? Is it a gift or is it a curse?

The story begins before Daniel's birth, with the apparent death by suicide of his parents. Why did they do it? Why did they smile at each other at the moment of their deaths? Had they had a premonition? Had a force beyond them dominated their lives to the point of ending them?

This novel is a thrilling and chilling account of what happens when power does not corrupt but utterly destroys. The author uses his skills and experiences with scriptwriting to bring the big screen onto the printed page.

Read this novel and you'll be thinking about it for a very long time.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

Red / Black

 Red / Black is a debut novel from new author Rachel Atherton-Charvat.

It tells the story of Sarah Hughes. Sarah is a dedicated wife and mother. She loves her husband, she loves her children. But she has another, secret, passion. She is a closet gambler.

Although Sarah's life looks to be idyllic, settled to a nice, comfortable life in leafy Cheltenham with her husband of 20 plus year and her children. But there are secret issues that impacting on Sarah, she has never recovered from the loss of a child killed during a car accident when Sarah was driving the car.

The trauma is revisited upon her when her husband decides to accept a job at a British military base in Germany.

When the family has moved to Germany she finds that her depressive illness has returned. She feels isolated and the problems of the military life worsens her problems and she takes up online gambling, in secret. After all, what harm could it do?

However, as her gambling escalates to a level where it might become a problem for Sarah in more ways than one, she starts to realise that there are problems within her marriage that she had either not noticed or which had been hidden from her. 

Is her husband all that he appeared to be? Can Sarah save herself from her gambling addiction? And what other disasters will impact on her life before the end of this epic tale?

It's a finely crafted novel which examines mental health issues in an intelligent and thoughtful way, yet without losing sight of the compelling interwoven stories.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

The Unfinished Painting

The Unfinished Painting is a novel from Mercedes Aguirrel. It begins in the era of Victorian England, when a young artist called Alexander Knight is found dead in unusual and violent circumstances.

The story then moves to the present day when Anna Carter, a student of art history who is studying at Cambridge University, finds herself having recurring dreams which link her to events that took place long ago and with an unfinished painting.

How is the past linked with the present day? How can she be linked to the aggressive and bewildered  young man called Lucas who is also troubled by recurring dreams, which also draw him to the museum and its art gallery?

But what about Julian? How was he connected to this series of strange events?

And how would resolution come to them all?

It's a moving and compelling novel which is translated from the Spanish by Richard Buxton.

I hope this is the first of many books from the author.

It is published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

Poetic Justice: Fame

In Poetic Justice: Fame readers once again meet with the ultimate anti-hero, Fran Ray's Randal Forbes.

Forbes believes that his telepathic powers are a gift. In fact he refers to it as "the gift."

But could it all be going wrong? Everything seems fine. After all he has achieved fame as a business entrepreneur and writer.

But the cost to other people has been horrendous, leaving murder victims and shattered lives in his wake.

The police are suspicious of him, but what can they prove?

His relationship with his loyal companion and devoted partner and protector Clive Hargreaves is as strong as ever and there is Forbes' wife to be, Alison Whitaker. Of course, Alinion is blissfully unaware of her fiance's gift. As is everyone else, of course. Or are they?

Because what if there was someone else with a dark power that equalled that of Forbes? Could they be able to stage a challenge to him? But why would they?

And if they did, who could possibly win such a monumental physic battle?

But can Forbes murder and trick his way to victory, again?

This is a gripping and utterly chilling continuation of the Randal Forbes story.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99. 

Straw Hat

Straw Hat is the second novel from the pen of Sussex-based author John David Harris. You may have already read his novel Beyond the Castle Arch.

The novel tells the story of John and Susan Grant, a married couple who are comfortable in their middle years. Having had to leave their ill daughter at the children's war of St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, they make a decision to visit a local auction room, where they both fall in love with a painting and successfully bid on it.

The painting depicts a young boy who is fishing on the River Arun which is local to the city.

But there was something that they couldn't have known. A link with a dreadful event that occurred many, many decades previously.

When they take the picture back to their farmhouse it becomes increasingly obvious to them that something is dreadfully, horribly wrong.

That their apparently beautiful picture is serving as a portal to past problems and misfortunes that are somehow dragging their .lives into a hellish nightmare.

The story also deals with the concept of a strong and burning unrequited love and how people deal with this type of situation.

It's a moving and poignant story which is very well told and gripping in its own way.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.