Published reviews this month:

Abyss & Apex, issue 26
Diet Soap, issue 2
Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley

Small Voices, Big Confessions edited by Chris Lee Ramsden (2006)

Frustratingly patchy anthology from the EditRed online writing community. It's frustrating because these stories genuinely have their moments -- I was struck particularly by how good some of the writers were at creating distinctive narrative voices -- yet I still felt there was something missing, without quite being sure what. Then I read what looks to be the only review of the book currently online, and I think I've worked out what was bugging me: that review mentions the subtext of one of the stories, but I think some would benefit from a bit more subtext; the tales didn't always seem to have as much to them as I'd have hoped for.

Which ones did I like? To pick out four: Eoin Beckett's short, intense character study of two people at a party. Teri Davis Rouvelas's tale of the lady upstairs who keeps leaving sacks of soil outside her door. Aiofe Mannix's child's-eye view of a broken relationship. Aliya Whitely's story of a polar bear who has issues with the number four. In short, this is a diverse anthology, but one that I think you do need to cherry-pick from.

9. Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley (2008). The first book I've read this year to be publshed this year -- and, yes, in the spirit of fairness, I should mention that the author is on my friends list. It's a fun, engaging novel in which two Royal Air Force wives (one of whom collects suicide notes, and the other of whom wants to be a psychiatrist) travel to a miserable seaside town to investigate the apparent suicide of a young television personality (look, when I said 'fun', I meant in a dark way).

Whiteley has a (welcome) habit of gleefully ignoring genre conventions, so anyone expecting a cosy detective story will be disaappointed. There is a mystery, but it's not the main point of the book -- it's the characters that Whiteley is most interested in, and the two friends' relationship develops in a way that grows naturally out of their personalities and situations, yet is not at all what you might expect. And all this is wrapped up in neat prose that reads quickly... yet I still ended up with the nagging feeling that Light Reading could have been better. The mystery isn't quite as satisfactory as I'd have liked, and I observed the characters developing rather than really feeling it. That said, the book is still well worth reading, particularly if you're after something a little different. A full review is in the works...

10. Grave Peril by Jim Butcher (2001). Third in the Dresden Files series of supernatural mystery/thrillers narrated by Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard. This time, the ghosts of the city are getting agitated, and something nasty seems to have it in for Dresden and those closest to him. There are, of course, a lot of these paranormal thrillers about at the moment -- often, it seems, in long series (there are nine Dresden books in print so far, with Butcher apparently intending to write more than double that number more); and, as they can appear from the outside to be much of a muchness, I don't tend to read that many (I may miss some good books that way; if so, it's my loss).

But I'm glad I took a chance on The Dresden Files -- Butcher has built up an interesting magical cosmology, and given Harry Dresden an engaging narrative voice. This particular volume has a lot of stuff about vampires, which could so easily have lapsed into cliché; but, happily, the author manages to put his own spin on them. Three books in, and background details emerge that will doubtless drive the plots of future volumes; it remains to be seen whether the edifice will collapse under its own weight, but I'm sticking with the series for now.