In a Dusty Coat With a Red Right Hand (Review: The Shadow Friend by Alex North)

As the official blurb says, everyone has met a kid like Charlie Crabtree - intelligent, manipulative, secretive and a little scary.  Paul, even as a teen, knew that something had to be done about Charlie but was unable to fathom exactly what before Charlie and his group of friends committed a terri…

...and, We're Back.

Clear, unscalable ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead, 

From whose cold, cascading streams

None may drink except in dreams.

                                      W.H. Auden

You Never Can Tell With Bees (Review: The Bees by Lalline Paul)

The Bees
Lalline Paul
Ecco, 2015

I have to make an admission before we get started: I’m pretty damn scared of bees. They don’t instill the same mind-numbing terror as wasps or my new Taiwanese nemesis the giant hornet. Still, it takes a lot for me to get through a book whose cover is swarming in aphid…