Far, Far the Mountain Peak

Far, Far the Mountain Peak is the début novel by Arthur Clifford, graduate of Rugby School and Newcastle University, school teacher, explorer and mountaineer of some renown.

It tells the story of John Denby, conceived in a church(!) to parents that might have cruelly been referred to in the Sun or the Daily Mail as "rent-a-protest tin-pot socialist revolutionaries" and, once born, he was rejected by these self-regarding and self-styled revolutionaries and parcelled off from the working class north (though his parents were anything but working class) to his wealthy grandparents in the south of England.

His grandparents doted on him and he was a well-loved child. He was pampered at home, sent to one of the best private schools that their money could buy and he lived a happy, contented life in the London suburb where he created his own idyllic little life filled with model railways (steam, of course!) and the teachings and promises of eternal salvation of the Scripture Union.

But a sudden tragedy destroys all that his grandparents and he had carefully constructed for John.

And he must return to the north of England, a north of England that he had never known.

His parents are just as cold and indifferent to him as they ever had been, and he is made to attend a bizarre and somewhat weird "experimental" state school, partially because this is a school that his father was instrumental in helping to create and launch.

John just does not fit in. Well, with the rejection of his parents and being reared by his wealthy grandparents in an entirely different society hundreds of miles away, how could he have ever had any hope of fitting in?

But John is far from being stupid and pretty quickly he realises that, in order to survive, let alone thrive, he will have to develop the ability to become two entirely different people. A posh and sensitive boy and also a devil may care hard boy. One of the lads.

As he grows up in this strange and somewhat alien environment, John Denby has to try to make sense of it all and to work out what he really wants in life and also how he is to attain it.

This is a very moving first novel and is well worth reading as it takes us from the confused, self-regarding protest generation to their children who still had to try to make sense of the real world.

It is published by The Book Guild at £12.99 and is available from the That's Books book shop, which you will find to the right hand side of this book review.

Zweck

Zweck, in which musician and well-published musical composer Stephen Deutsch (he of well over 40 scores for concert works, films/movies and the theatre plus a couple of scripts for television dramas) explores the world of modern musical composers.

Zweck is set in 1972. Bernard Robbins is a typical American in London. He is a mixture of innocence, arrogance and has a certain lack of knowledge about many of the things in life that matter.

He is in London to further his career as a concert pianist, a conductor and also as a composer of music.

By utter chance Bernard meets the only other member of his family who lives in London, his great uncle, Hermann Heinrich Zweck.

Now into his 90s, Zweck once had it all, he was an eminent composer. But now? Well, not so much eminence as there has been a somewhat dramatic slipping away of any public recognition of his once highly esteemed works.

Now Zweck is a one man force fighting a sort of guerilla war against what he sees as cowardice. laziness, ineptitude and stupidity of the entire world.

How can Bernard cope with the eccentricities and the rages -often capricious- of his older relative?

For some reason Zweck is excessively enraged by the hapless and less than offensive English musicologist Charles Forsythe. And he seems to have it in for Bernard, too!

But why? What motivates and drives Zweck and his rages?

Is it wine, women and song? Or perhaps just the latter two?

The book is subtitled "A novel and mostly reliable musical history."

The book is a delightful tale, which wanders off into all sorts of odd and somewhat arcane areas of musical history. For example, did you know of the link between Chief Sitting Bull and Rachmaninoff?

This is an interesting and marvellously mischievous novel and at £9.99 from Matador is available via the That's books Book Shop, available on the right hand side of this book review.

Ripped Apart

Ripped Apart is a novel by Geoffrey Arnold.

It is a science fiction novel that tells the story of the twins.

Geoffrey Arnold relates that the story is based on what the twins told him, and that this process started, not very far from the Midlands city of Birmingham, one Saturday afternoon, when he took a notepad and a pen and began to transcribe the story (a true story, they assured him) of what had happened to them.

The book is a part of a four part series based on their recollections, "Quantum Twins -Adventures of Two Worlds."

Somehow thrust out of their own, very different, dimension, a boy and a girl (the twins) find themselves separated for the very first time ever at age 15, with the whole of planet Earth between them.

Even their telepathic link is severed. Which must have been devastating for them, as this was the first time they were not only alone from others of their kind, but of each other, too.

They revealed to Geoffrey that they were not the first of their people to visit the Earth. That others of their people had arrived here 75,000 previously. And were, in fact, the ancestors of the human race that populates the Earth.

The twins, coming from a place that is harmonious and at peace, are shocked and horrified at the situation that they find on Earth.

The twins were desperate to be reunited and they required the help of the humans of Earth if this reunification of the twins was to happen.

They also needed to avoid detection and capture and to, eventually, return to their own home.

True or the work of an exceptionally active imagination?  It doesn't matter, because Geoffrey Coldfield tells a good story.

It's £8.97 in paperback and is, of course, available from the That's Books bookshop, to the right hand side of this review.

A Passionate Spirit

A Passionate Spirit, a paranormal thriller, written by S C Skillman, tells the story of Zoe who, at 35, looks like she has it all.

She is young, attractive, is married to a priest who is less than conventional and together they have a beautiful baby daughter and they move to what should be a delightful new home in the idyllic Cotswold hills.

So, given that set of circumstances, what on earth could possibly go wrong?

Well... there's the dreams, you see? The recurring nightmare dream in which Zoe dreams of a young woman who is fleeing, fleeing for her life.

Zoe is disturbed by these dreams and she also has a darkening sense of foreboding. For somehow, Zoe knows that the life of her precious baby is at risk. As is her own life.

At which point, things become more sinister, as two totally unexpected guests arrive at their home. James and Natasha.

But there's nothing wrong with James and Natasha, surely?

However, Zoe's friend Alice wouldn't agree. For some reason she cannot quite trust the new couple. Even more so, Natasha.

But only Zoe agrees with Alice. Everyone else seems to trust them.

Natasha soon sets to work proving her abilities as a very talented healer. A very talented healer, indeed. In fact some say her healings are nothing short of miraculous and that Natasha is a miracle worker.

But the sense of dis-ease and foreboding will not leave Zoe.

But Zoe knows that she must challenge Natasha. But can she be prepared for the forces that she is suddenly confronted with? The sheer, stark terror that she will face?

Will she and her stalwart, true friend Alice be able to prevail against the malevolent forces that are suddenly directed toward them?

If you like your thrillers with more than a touch of the paranormal, then this is the ideal book for you. It is published by Matador and costs £8.99 in paperback and is available from the That's Books book shop which you will find to the right hand side of this book review.

Every Shade of Blue

Every Shade of Blue is a new novel by Linzi Drew-Honey.

It tells the story of what happens when Suzanne Perry-Jackson is cruelly dumped by her husband of two decades when he trades her in for a much younger woman.

Suzanne's life as she knew it, an easeful, comfortable, relatively simplistic world, is suddenly smashed to bits.

Within a couple of months of the break-up, Suzanne meets Angelo Azzurro. He is a stranger with the ability to capture her heart.

He senses that she is hurting and vulnerable and he lures her into a world of a sadomasochistic sex.

She decides that this event, a liberating, though painful, encounter will be a one off event. A moment of lunacy.

She later meets with the man of her dreams, a stunningly handsome orthopaedic surgeon,  Sebastian Black.

But Angelo is not a man to be thwarted. He is dangerous and is not used to people saying "no" to him.

So he kidnaps her and keeps her entrapped.

When Suzanne vanishes, Sebastian is frantic. He is fully aware that Angelo is behind the disappearance of his beloved Suzanne.

Will he find her? Can he save her from Angelo?

This novel is published by Troubadour in paperback at £8.99.

It will be available through the That's Books and Entertainment online bookshop, just to the right-hand side of this book review.

(EDITOR: This is a very raunchy book, so not for the faint of heart. In fact one description of it is: "Every Shade of Blue makes 50 Shades of Grey read like a brochure for a chandlery shop!")

The Price of Love by Deanna Maclaren

The Price of Love by Deanna Maclaren takes the reader straight into the global heart of Romance, Paris.

Helen, the protagonist of The Price of Love is living in London.

She seems to be trapped in a dead-end job, with no hope of doing very much, to be honest.

But that is where her story really, truly begins.

For her new found French lover, Jean-Paul, encourages her to leave London and her career (such as it is!) to go to Paris to spend Christmas there.

But then, from Jean-Paul's perspective, things start to go awry.

He is infuriated when Helen decides to take up a job as a cleaner and perhaps understandably enraged when she begins to have an affair with an attractive bad boy, Alexis.

Via the contacts of Alexis, Helen become au fait with the swinging scene of Paris and also the sister of Alexis, a so-called wild child, Malveen.

Then to add to the chaos (or le chaos as the French would put it) Jean-Paul dies without any real warning.

Marc, the adult son of Jean-Paul, does his best to offer his comfort to Helen.

Then, Malveen's marriage instantly takes a turn for the worst and Malveen is locked in a dungeon by her husband.

Malveen, not surprisingly, takes this marital decision by her husband rather badly (what with that and the horribly messy business with the nourriture pour chien) and manages to orchestrate her own escape from her espousal entrapment.

Unfortunately after she is able to effect her escape she  murders the employer of Helen. (As if Helen's life is not already complicated enough!)

Marc becomes beside himself and Helen takes the sensible step of fleeing Paris (indeed, fleeing France its entirety) and returning to the relative sanity and safety of life with her family in Southwold, Suffolk.

But Marc is made of sterner stuff and he tracks her down to England. And if you want to know how it all plays out, the book will cost you £9.99, from Matador.

You will be enchanted by the witty, breathless writing style of Deanna Maclaren. This is her tenth book.

The book is also available from the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop which you will find on the right hand side of this site. Also whilst there, search for Deanna's other novels.

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