A TASTE FOR SIN - GIL BREWER

Protagonist: Jim Phalen, Liquor store worker

Series?: Standalone (written in 1959)

Setting: Smalltown America

Jim Phalen has a dead end job,lives in a dead end rooming house,and has a dead end life. And he's in lust with Felice, the dangerous young wife of the local bank manager. She's one of the most dangerous femmes fatales I've ever read. This is a nasty nasty book, filled with nasty nasty people. Here's one of my favurite lines:

'She was… Continue

A Well Manicured Lady

Hell Cat Maggie – New York – mid 1800s



During the 1800s a number of gangs in New York fought for control of areas such as The Bowery and Hell’s Kitchen. It was not uncommon for soldiers and the National Guard to be brought in to stop the gang fights. The gangs revelled in names such as The Bowery Boys, The Plug Uglies, The Dead Rabbits, The Gophers, The Shirt Tails, The Roach Guards, as well as the innocently named Little Doggies, or The Pansies. Just as today… Continue

Viking Warrior Princess

Freydis Eiriksdottir – Greenland – c975-?



Freydis was the illegitimate daughter of Erik The Red, and half sister of Leif Eriksson. Married very young to a wealthy but apparently weak man called Thorvard she became a brave, if brutal, warrior and would accompany her husband on his sailing expeditions. No pleasant cruise around the Med, however; these were expeditions to trade goods and take land.



In 1004 she and her husband set off on a three year… Continue

Well, my excitement for the day was the police turning up at my door. Now, I don't know about you, but whenever a policeman turns up at my door and says "Are you Donna Moore?" I always start to panic. Of course, it's to be hoped that a policeman isn't going to turn up at your door and say "Are you Donna Moore?" That's an altogether different problem. My immediate response is to think a) Oh my God what's happened to everyone I love, followed swiftly by b) What the… Continue

The Blood Countess of Transylvania



Elizabeth (Erzsebet) Bathory – 1560-1614





Elizabeth Bathory was born in Hungary in 1560, the daughter of one of the richest and most influential families of the period. However, at a time when Hungary’s nobility was shrinking, decades of intermarriage had had an unfortunate effect on the family’s lineage and not only could the Bathorys boast warlords, kings, great statesmen and cardinals; but the branches of the family tree were also… Continue

La Belle Horizontale

Lola Montez – Ireland – 1821-1861



Lola Montez claimed to be either the daughter of Lord Byron or a matador, depending on how she was feeling. The more prosaic truth is that she was born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in County Sligo, Ireland, the daughter of an army officer and a chorus girl. She spent her early years in India where her love of dancing was born when one of the family’s servants taught her how to belly dance. However, when her mother remarried after her… Continue

I love larger than life characters, whether fictional or real, and I have a very soft spot for those outrageous women throughout history who have had an impact on the times in which they lived. Women who were queens, murderesses, courtesans, adventurers, pirates, witches, highway robbers. Exceptionally, deliciously wicked women.



Women such as the Egyptian queen Nitocris (c2175BC) who avenged the death of her brother in an impressive and original way by inviting all those who had a… Continue

A while ago, a friend sent me an extract from a 1960s Home Economics Textbook about what to do when hubby comes home from work. All the men I showed it to looked wistful, all the women just laughed. So I updated it for the 21st century, so here's the original and my updated version.



THE ORIGINAL



Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return home from work. This is a way of letting him know that you have been… Continue

Here are my small, but perfectly formed, May reads.



DONKEY PUNCH - RAY BANKS

Protagonist: Cal Innes

Series?: Second

Setting: Manchester and LA

After a very brief (and extremely unsuccessful) stint as a PI, Cal Innes is helping out at his mate Paulo's gym in Manchester and reluctantly

agrees to chaperone a teenage boxer to an important amateur boxing

tournament in LA. Liam is a talented boxer, but also a bad tempered

obstreperous teenager, who's not… Continue

Hello All,



This week, some nice publisher people (whose lists I am obviously on by mistake, but shhhhhhhhhh, I won't tell them if you won't!) have sent me some of my favourite books. Since I already own multiple copies of all these books, and keeping them would just be greedy, I thought I would offer them here. If you would like one, please send me a little message thingy and let me know which one (it's a tough choice, you can claim multiple ones if you like) I only have one copy of… Continue