The Blue Pendant

The Blue Pendant is a novel by Valerie Duncan that is a novel from our near history, it tells the story of a growing and developing relationship between two women in the 1960s.

The novel launches in the year 1962 where the protagonists, Jo and Jenny, make their acquaintance in college. 

As their friendship ripens they realise that they share passions for music, the dramatic arts and poetry. 

Over the years their friendship becomes deeper and transcends mere friendship, becoming something much more than that.

To their other friends and the outside world they appear to be just good friends. But behind closed doors, it is an entirely different matter as true love blooms and blossoms.

However, Jenny becomes fearful that the true nature of their intense relationship will be revealed to the world so she makes a instant decision to leave Jo behind and flees for a new life in France.

Meanwhile Jo forges a new life for herself as a highly successful magazine editor.

The novel looks at their parallel lives, examines how they live their now separate lives as they attempt to move on.

Jo and Jenny both find a measure of joy and happiness in their lives but both feel that, somehow, there is a certain lack. That something is missing.

Can their love bring them back together? Or will they still be haunted, their hopes blighted and dashed by by that fear of discovery, that fear of what others might think, do or say?

This book is a published (in paperback) by The Book Guild at £8.99 and is available via The That's Books and Entertainment bookshop, just to the right side of this review.

End Point

End Point is the debut science fiction novel of Author Peter Breakspear.

The book is interesting as it was an entry for a competition in Writing Magazine to have a novel published by Matador Books.

And as the book is, indeed, published by Matador, you'll gather that it was the winning entry out of over 100 hopeful authors.

We find ourselves in a Welsh valley with Tom and his special team who are there to retrieve something that has fallen to the Earth.

Missions to Mars and Venus offer proof to the team that planet Earth has been the subject of intense interest from beings from other worlds for a considerable period of time.

They also discover evidence that the environmental conditions of our planet had been subject to manipulation and outside influence for thousands and thousands of years.

Suddenly a member of the team disappears only to be returned to the team but as a radically changed being.

What, exactly, is he, now? An enemy or just someone who is attempting to guide the team, to help them in their ongoing quest?

Even so, they find themselves subjected to numerous examples of misdirection. But, ultimately they arrive at the answer they have been seeking. Or is it?

Is the Biblical story of the Ark of the Covenant somehow linked in to the events they have been investigating?

Is this an End Point or is it really a Beginning Point?

This book costs £8.99 and is available from the That's Books and Entertainment Bookshop. You'll find that just over to the right of this review.

Ben and the Spider Prince

In this delightful follow up to Ben and the Spider Gate, in Ben and the Spider Prince, we learn that, once again, Lox and the Spider Wizard are in desperate need of the assistance and help of Ben, their human friend.

The Spider Princess is suffering from a dire illness and she is in need of the treatment of a specific, special cure.

However, the ingredients required for this particular type of medicine are all highly special and need to be gathered together so that the medicine can be made.

And it is Ben's task to find those special ingredients!

Can Gran give Ben a special secret that would be capable of keeping Ben safe from Spindra, the wicked sister of the spider Queen?

Written by Angela Fish, this is a charming and eminently well-written book for children.

Again, this book is beautifully illustrated and will be a great book for all children and adults from parents to grandparents and older siblings who like to read to their little brothers and sisters.

In a review Maria Grachvogel very wisely points out that it is "a story about loyalty and friendship."

It's published by the Book Guild in hardback at a very reasonable £9.95 and is available through the That's Books and Entertainment online bookshop, the portal of which you will find on the right hand side of this book review.

Buy it early for Christmas, that's my advice!

Clearful and the Queen

Once upon a time (well, not that long ago) a real little girl who goes by the name of Lali, invented a new word.

In the story of Clearful and the Queen, Lali and Abba, her big sister, decided that they should tell the Queen the story of the new word so they embarked on an amazing adventure, assisted by their speical pet cat, called Smokey.

After they invented their new word, "Clearful" they thought it best to tell the Queen that they had invented a new word.

So they wrote a letter to the Queen explaining all about the new word, which they had invented during a visit to their grandparents' house.

Much to their delight and surprise, the Queen writes back to them and even more spectacular, the Queen decides to invite them to tea!

They set out on a simply stunning adventure to travel from their house to Buckingham Palace to accept their invitation.

This is a charming and exceptionally well illustrated book written by  M J Exon (who in her day job is the Managing Director of BBH, a leading creative agency) and illustrated by Sid Russell, who is a highly talented artist and designer who is head of BBH's Design Department.

The book costs a remarkably reasonable £6.99 and will delight both parents, grandparents and children.

It is published by Matador and is available via the The That's Books and Entertainment book shop, which you will find to the right of this review.

The Conjurer's Mouse

The Conjurer's Mouse is a clever and light collection of rhyming short stories and other bits of random fun that are designed to keep all children and adults amused and entertained.

Authored an illustrated by Ann and Fred Onymouse (who have decided to tick the 'no publicity box' of life!).

The book is an amiable and delightful little diversion which is chock full of a wild melange of stories from a frightened rodent cafe owner, the benefits of humming, what happens at the alien's party night, a guitar playing kitty, a young rat with a problem, what monsters watch on their T.V. News.

What happens when a mongrel wants to enter a village dog show, what happens when you have a dinosaur for a brother and what happened to poor Ned Willow with his absolutely dreadful new pillow!

The book is published by Matador at £6.99 and is available from the that's Books and Entertainment bookshop, which is to be found at the right hand side of this book review.

Highlanders' Revenge

Highlanders' Revenge is a novel by a writing team made up of Uncle and Niece Paul and Victoria Richman in their debut novel under the pen name of Paul Tors.

Highlanders' Revenge tells the story of a Mash Man, the name of an outsider with a group of Highland soldiers.

This Mas Man is an Englishman, already marked by the loss of the love of his life by a murder and by the retreat before the advancing Nazi hordes of the Blitzkrieg.

His fellow soldiers are wary of this sullen and secretive outsider as they find themselves in Egypt where they find themselves battling an enemy ad natural conditions that test them to the very limits of their physical and metal endurance.
  
They find themselves caught up in one of the largest and most vicious battles of the entire Second World War, El Alamein.

The novel combines truth with fiction as it retells the exploits of the 5th Camerons, an amazing military unit as it saw action in most of the decisive and major battles of not  only the North African theatre of war but also of Western Europe.

Our two authors skillfully interweave the fictional life of Mash with the factual history of the 5th Camerons.

At only £9.99 this is a gripping military novel and, with its meticulous research, will be an ideal book for lovers of this genre.

It's available from the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop, just to the right of this review.

The Cow That Jumped Over the Moon

The Cow That Jumped Over the Moon is a new retelling of a classic tale.

Jooks, who is eight years old, has taken her favourite nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle, and re-imagined  it as a stunning new and very captivating story of what the cow who jumped over the moon did next.

Bored with his everyday life of continually leaping over the moon the cow seeks out new experiences and new adventures in a host of new environments and locations.

The cow journeys to the Earth where it jumps over Antarctica, leaps over a rainbow (with hilarious consequences!) bounds about over Ice Cream Land and eventually he decides that he has had more than enough mad jumping about adventures for one day.

But the cow discovers that he isn't quite the cow that he used to be!

To find out how the cow and why has changed, and how thrilled he is, you will have to buy this wonderful and highly charming book.

It costs a remarkably pocket money friendly £3.99 and with the highly colourful and delightful illustrations by Anna Kubaszewska, this new book will be a must buy for any child from 0 to 5 or so.

It is published by Studionesh Limited and is printed and published in Wales.

Jooks (who hails from Cardiff in south Wales) was inspired to write the book when she was singing nursery rhymes to her little sister, after she started to make up some new stories for her, Jooks decided to write her favourite one down and thus The Cow Who Jumped Over the Moon was born.

Ideal for children, their parents and grandparents this is a must buy book.

It is available from the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop which is to be found to the right of this book review.