grahamdowns's reviews
23 reviews

This was amazing! I learnt so much from this book, and it’s so my style. I love the word association, where one definition leads into the next. It reminds me of one of my favourite South African comedians, Alan Committie, who, during his performances, does this thing where he writes a random word on a flip chart, then associates that word with another, then associates THAT word with another, and so on, and so on, until twenty or thirty words later, he comes back to the first word. I’m definitely going to recommend it to him; I think he would get a kick out of it.

There really isn’t anything more to say about this book. It’s right up my street, my cup of tea, whatever other metaphors you want to use. If you’re a logophile like me (a word I learnt from this book), you’ll love it.

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This series is getting pretty good, I must admit. Every episode there’s some new twist, and this one takes it in a completely unexpected direction.

Fair warning: I enjoy series that do a good job of telling new readers (or readers who maybe haven’t read the previous instalment in a while) what’s happening. Not really a "last time on x", but just subtle weaving into the narrative. Like, the first time they mention a character in each book, they give a brief reminder of who that character is and where they fit into the story. Or when a plot point relies on something that came before, briefly go over what happened before. That sort of thing, you know?

This is not one of those series. Each book jumps straight into the action and expects you to know exactly where you are. If you read the last book a month ago and have a less than perfect memory, you are going to struggle. And if you haven’t read any previous instalments, then you have no hope. Go back to book one.

But these books are so short, they’re like 60 minute TV episodes, without recaps. You’re meant to binge them like a Netflix series—which I still think they’d do well as—where you finish the entire thing in a couple of days.

If that’s your thing, you’ll love this series.

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This is the best one yet.

It’s a new story arc, so you don’t have to have read any of the previous books in the series to enjoy this one. But honestly, why would you not? It’s a wonderful series.

In this one, the plot’s a little different. Now, the main character is someone from the mundane world who realises that not only is magic real, and faeries are real, but she’s a faerie, and she can wield magic.

I guess it’s kind of reminiscent of the first arc, except it’s the opposite. In that one, the main character was the one to introduce someone from the mundane world to magic. In this one, the main character is the one being introduced. :)

As we’ve gotten used to, each new arc builds on the ones before, and although this one’s set some time after the last one, all the old characters are still there. They’re all older and wiser now, and in different phases of their lives.

Honestly, the world of this series is just so compelling. So engrossing. And the writing is so wholesome.

If you’re in any way a fan of Urban Fantasy, you really should give this series a look.

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This had the makings of a decent enough story, but bad writing let it down.

I struggle to stay immersed when I see things like missing apostrophes, incorrectly used phrases (“must of” instead of “must have”, for example), commas everywhere except where they should be... things like that.

I know those things don’t bother some people, but they bother me. It’s a real shame.

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This is a really nice collection. The stories are of varying lengths, but they all tie back to the overarching theme of Womanhood. From pregnancy and motherhood, to abuse, to the patriarchy and how society treats women, to mental illness, and finally to triumph.

Some of them are more on the nose than others, but the theme is definitely recognisable in all of them, and there’s a nice progression too.

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This series is good. It’s no great work of literature, and it’s a little pulpy. But it’s good.

In fact, I’d like to see Netflix or ShowMax or someone make limit series out of it. I’d watch that.

The series is about a random woman from Johannesburg, South Africa, who gets kidnapped by a mysterious Organisation, and forced to fight to the death. As it goes on, she learns more about this Organisation and the weird traditions and games they play.

It almost reminds me of movies like Hard Target (the 90s movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme), but not really because over time, she becomes a willing participant in these games.

I think if you enjoy stories like that, you’ll like this one. Joan De La Haye has a way with words, and she’s really developing her voice and coming into her own.

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I started reading this book some time ago. Then I had to stop in the middle so I could proofread a friend’s book. I finished that one, picked this one up again, and it was like I’d never put it down!

This is the sixth book in the Creepy Hollow series, but the last book in the three-book “Calla” arc. It’s difficult to write much for fear of spoilers, but I can tell you that this series keeps going from strength to strength. You should absolutely pick it up if you haven’t already.

There are three three-part character arcs in the Creepy Hollow series. If you wanted to, you could start at the beginning of any arc. But I think you’d be missing out if you did that. While you don’t NEED to know what happened in the previous arcs, there are callbacks to those old characters that will make you feel very special if you’ve read their stories.

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This series is about a woman from Johannesburg who gets kidnapped and forced to fight for her life in a modern-day gladiatorial style combat.

The first instalment was all about her first fight. We didn’t know too much about her, who took her or why.

This second instalment is where she figures some things out. Exactly who is her patron, what does he want from her, and all the politics of “The Organisation”.

It’s pretty cool. It ends in a cliffhanger, and normally I don’t like those. But these instalments are short enough that it feels like a serialised novel, rather than each one being a separate book. It’s a good way of doing it, I think.

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen an ARKANE book, and this one was worth the wait. It was shorter that normal, but I think the reason is that the author wrote it during lockdown, when she couldn’t travel much. And as she said in her Afterword, travelling is her muse.

You know what I like most about these books? They’re just so respectful. The author isn’t religious (as far as I can tell), but she has a theology degree. And all these books deal with religion. Mostly Christian, but some of them are about Norse and Indian mythology too. And although the author herself isn’t religious, and neither are her main characters, they always talk about the characters’ beliefs with such reverence. It’s truly refreshing.

Unlike the other books, which you can read as standalones in any order, this one seems to end on a small cliffhanger, implying that you probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy the next one if you haven’t read this one. But of course, she hasn’t written that one yet, so time will tell.

I think if you enjoy Dan Brown (I don’t), and you enjoy Indiana Jones or Lara Croft (I do), you’ll enjoy this series. I also get some Warehouse 13 vibes (if you’re old enough to remember that TV show), only a lot more serious.

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Paths is the third book I’ve read from Dean Skinner, after Healed and Broken. I must admit, it didn’t resonate with me as much as those other two.

It’s a profound story about a man who imagines how different his life could be if he’d just made one or two decisions differently. And on that score, I think we can ALL relate, because we’ve all got regrets. Or, if not regrets, let’s call them curiosities, at least.

The reason it didn’t resonate so much with me is no fault of the author or the story itself; it’s just that it’s about American Football, which is a sport I know nothing about and have almost no interest in. 

Paths is also not as overtly Christian as Healed, or even Broken. Towards the end of the story, there’s a brief mention of the narrator thanking God for something, but other than that, God’s name doesn’t even come up except in vain.

In my reviews for both other books, I mentioned “shoddy editing”. Either the editing in this one is much better, or I’m just getting used to the author’s style. It’s still riddled with redundancies, to be sure: things happen at the “exact same” time as other things, for example, and the narrator still “thinks to himself”. But I think by now I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this is the author’s personal style. And it sort of works anyway, seeing as this is a story told in the first person.

Dean Skinner can definitely tell a story, as I’ve said before, and all his stories have deep meaning and are meant to be prayed over, contemplated, and used to teach us something. This one’s no different, and even if you’re not into American Football, you will get something out of it.

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