Sparkling with originality and charm, this is a heart-warming, hilarious story about friendship.

From the very first pages of this book the author grabbed my attention and she kept it right through until the last page. The plot is one that I think readers of all ages can identify with, Martha is finished with the idea of friends after her friend let her down so badly – she knows she’ll be better off going it alone. Even meeting the rather odd Opal Moonbaby won’t change her mind.

I must admit I had an idea in my head of how the plot was going to play out, with Opal being an alien from another planet, but I was pleased to be entirely wrong. I’d expected Opal to need to be introduced to everything in our world, but the author avoided that and instead allowed Opal to be knowledgeable but for this knowledge to be flawed. To me this resulted in a far funnier and more enjoyable book.

There’s so much to love about this book, Opal, her adorable companion Garnet, and lovely brother and sister Martha and Robbie are all characters I really enjoyed reading about. The ‘bad guys’ are well created too, the author takes real care to show why they are acting the way they are.

Reading this book I was transported back to the books I’d loved as a child. The illustrations help with this I think, at times they really reminded me of the art work by Quentin Blake that adorned the pages of the Roald Dahl books I adored. I think this book will go down really well with young readers, and they’ll probably learn a thing or two about friendship whilst they read without even realising it.

Opal Moonbaby is published in paperback and eBook by Orion in the UK. Whilst I was provided with a review copy of the book all of the opinions expressed are my own.

Will Rachel save The Lady – or sink it?

I watched the Channel 4 documentary about Rachel Johnson taking over the editorship of The Lady so I thought this book could be an interesting read. Before watching the documentary my sole knowledge of the magazine was that one of the porters who ran a Halls of Residence I lived in during my first degree swore by it as the place to find work.

The book’s written in diary form, it begins in June 2009 before Johnson is asked to interview for the post of editor, and goes through to June 2010 (my copy is the hardback version, the subsequent paperback and eBook releases have extra content and go through to early 2011). These diary entries include snippets of emails and letters that she receives and lists of the many and varied items that appear in her in tray.

The book does cover the same ground that the documentary covered, though with far more detail, and it’s with Johnson’s spin rather than the documentary maker’s. Before starting to read the book I knew I needed to put my own personal beliefs and politics to one side or I would more than likely end up wanting to throw the book across the room. Even after this I still found parts of the book difficult going.

Throughout the book my feelings were really mixed, and eventually I worked out why. When Johnson is talking about the job of taking over a magazine, and dealing with challenging staff and external influences my interest level was high. When she was talking about the endless parties and social events she attends, and drops names at a rate of knots my interest was low. I know that the two things do overlap, but I could really have done with less of the high society schmoozing.

One thing I did really love about the book was that each section that covered a month was preceded by a cover of the magazine. These dated back to 1899 and came right up to date, it was fascinating seeing how the covers had evolved over time – some of the older ones are absolutely beautiful.

Whilst this was a fairly interesting read I’m rather glad my version is the shorter one, by the time I got to the end I was definitely ready to finish reading. I’m sure lots of people will love this, but for me it was just okay.

A Diary of The Lady is published in hardback, paperback and eBook by Penguin in the UK.

A double post this week because I completely forgot about it last week. The theme for the weekly photo in week 6 was Light, I took a photo of the light shining through a prism that hangs in our kitchen window. The theme for week 7 was Reading, I used a screenshot of some of my RSS feeds on my phone – I figured I already take enough pictures of books so I needed to think of a different subject matter.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

This book really appealed to me, a cyborg version of Cinderella? Well maybe this could be a version of the fairy story that I could love, I’m afraid the Disney version would come really low on my list of their film adaptations. The book is divided into four sections which are each divided into chapters, I sat down to read just the first chapter and ended up getting to the end of the first section without even thinking about what else I should be doing, and soon carried on to finish the whole book.

The danger with a retelling of a story as familiar as Cinderella is that the reader is not surprised by the book, and that the plot just plays out as expected. I was really pleased that this wasn’t the case, whilst the story is essentially the one we’re all familiar with there were plenty of twists and turns and tweaks to keep the interest right the way through. I absolutely loved the way the Cinderella story was transported into a future version of Earth complete with cyborgs, AI lifeforms and hover transport. The world that Meyer created was vivid, I found it really easy to imagine. The opening chapters are set in a market place, I really got the sense of this noisy, bustling place.

Cinder is a pretty great character, I liked the fact she was practical and smart, and as in control of her own life as she could be. Her relationship with her younger step-sister Pearl was lovely, and I adored the friendship between Cinder and her very wonderful robot Iko. I also loved Prince Kai, whilst he was most definitely a Prince Charming he was also an interesting, engaging character with depth. Both Cinder’s stepmother and the ruler of the Lunar empire make for excellent villainous characters, I do love good bad guys!

By the time I got to the end of the book I was desperate to carry on with the story. Alas it is a whole year before the next book in this series, and based on what I’ve read about the Lunar Chronicles series it seems that each book is going to feature a different fairy tale heroine so I’m not sure how much more of Cinder we’re going to get to see. I’m quite prepared to wait and see how the series plays out though, I have a feeling it’s going to be good.

Cinder is published in hardback, paperback and eBook by Puffin in the UK. Whilst I was provided with a review copy of the book via UK Book Tours all of the opinions expressed are my own.

An Officer and a Gentlewoman is the first female perspective on Sandhurst and the making of a female British Army Officer.

One of the things on my Things Before 30 list is to read a non-fiction book every month. I’m forever seeing non-fiction books that I think sound interesting but really rubbish at getting round to reading them instead of my usual diet of as much fiction as I can get my hands on. I thought this book sounded really interesting, I come from a family with a lot of ties to the army and an old uni friend went through Sandhurst and is currently serving as an officer in the British Army so I thought I could really enjoy reading it. If nothing else it would give me a bit of an insight into the experience my friend would have had at Sandhurst as he attended at a similar time.

The book does begin with two caveats, one from the Ministry of Defence explaining that since Goodley attended Sandhurst in 2007 a lot of alterations to the process have been made so the experience she had is no longer the same as that of current recruits, and one from the author explaining that it has been necessary to apply some fictional licence in the telling of the story. Whilst I completely understand the need for both of these, I did find that as I was reading I did end up wondering for example which of the characters were entirely fictional.

The book is definitely a very interesting read. The first chapter follows Goodley as she flies out to Afghanistan for the first time, the book then jumps back to when she was working in the City in the banking industry and then follows her making the decision to join the army and then from the third chapter on her year at Sandhurst. I found the descriptions of the Sandhurst experience really interesting. Whilst there were things in there that I’d heard a little about before such as the rigorous room inspections, there was so much I didn’t know – so many times throughout the book I was surprised by the details and extreme nature of some of the rules, regulations and procedures.

The book is also an entertaining read. There were a number of times where I found myself chuckling away at something that Goodley described, as I’m writing this there’s one scene that springs to mind that has had me laughing all over again. At times it is also quite a touching account, there are moments of personal achievement and also of reflection that help to ground the book in its reality.

I’m really glad that I read this book, I don’t know if the author plans to write a follow up at some point about her experiences post Sandhurst but if she does then I’ll definitely be reading it.

An Officer and a Gentlewoman is published in hardback by Constable in the UK. Whilst I was provided with a review copy of the book all of the opinions expressed are my own.

Fueled by wry humor, this much-anticipated sequel to the children’s classic by Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond — featuring a contemporary family and a camper van with a mind of its own — is driven by best-selling, award-winning author Frank Cottrell Boyce and revved up by Joe Berger’s black-and-white illustrations.

I’ve been meaning to read something by Frank Cottrell Boyce ever since I discovered he wrote the book Framed that was adapted by the BBC a couple of years ago. Then lovely author Keris Stainton tweeted that she’d enjoyed this so I thought I would give it a go. I loved the film and the stage adaptation of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang so the idea of a follow up really appealed to me.

The first thing I have to say about this book is how much fun it is. I grinned all the way through it and laughed so many times. The plot is quick, and quirky and really entertaining. I loved the idea initially of a camper van that had been modified with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style features, but the quick realisation that actually the original Chitty is trying to reassemble itself made me love it even more.

The book focuses on the Tooting family; Mum, Dad, and their three children Lucy, Jem and Harry. I loved Dad’s mad inventor side and eccentricities. The children were all brilliant characters, I’m not sure I could pick a favourite between them though Harry the toddler would probably make a good case for it being him. It wouldn’t be a good follow up to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if there wasn’t some sort of scary character, Nanny makes a pretty good job of it though I was pretty pleased to see that she wasn’t as scary as the Childcatcher of the original story.

The book is a pretty quick read as an adult, it’s the kind of story that I imagine would work really well for bedtime storytelling. I’ll certainly be picking up more books by the author in the future.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again is published in hardback and eBook by Macmillan in the UK.

I really didn’t mind which way the final vote went, I thought they all sounded like pretty good options. The winner was the mystery girl, who turned out to be a friend April had made whilst she was living Leah’s life in 2011. There was so much to love about this chapter, the way characters reappeared as grown ups and that we got to find out about what had happened to them. I think the way that Leah came out of this experience having learnt so much as well as April was brilliant, I hadn’t really thought about this side of the story throughout so it was nice to see that Leah got something out of the experience too.

I enjoyed this book a lot, I wonder what Fiction Express will bring us next?

So what does this actually mean?
Between 16th and 30th April UNAGENTED AUTHORS can send their novels in to Strange Chemistry for their consideration. They will be reading all novels that are submitted (providing they follow all of the guidelines for submission) and may end up publishing some of them.

Angry Robot Books did this last year, and so far three authors have been signed as a result of it. If you’ve got a YA novel that falls anywhere in the SF/F genres this is a really great opportunity to get your work seen. Who knows, this time next year I might be writing a post about *your* debut novel with Strange Chemistry!

This page is vital reading for anyone who thinks that they might like to sumbit their novel. It contains all of the information about what they are and aren’t looking for, how you should format your submission and a really helpful FAQ. So get reading, and get fixing up that manuscript and good luck!

Blackwood by Gwenda Bond.

About the book: On Roanoke Island, the legend of the 114 people who mysteriously vanished from the Lost Colony hundreds of years ago is just an outdoor drama for the tourists, a story people tell. But when the island faces the sudden disappearance of 114 people now, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bringing them back.

Miranda, a misfit girl from the island’s most infamous family, and Phillips, an exiled teen criminal who hears the voices of the dead, must dodge everyone from federal agents to long-dead alchemists as they work to uncover the secrets of the new Lost Colony. The one thing they can’t dodge is each other.

Blackwood is a dark, witty coming of age story that combines America’s oldest mystery with a thoroughly contemporary romance.

About the author: Gwenda Bond is a contributing writer for Publishers Weekly, has reviewed books for the Washington Post and Locus Magazine, and has appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition. She won the 2010 Veritas Media Award from the Romance Writers of America for her article “Romancing the Recession” in PW, and recently guest edited a special YA issue of Subterranean Online featuring work by Kelly Link, Sarah Rees Brennan, Malinda Lo, and others.

Gwenda also holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ program in writing for children and young adults, and maintains an active online presence. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, SF author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie.

Visit Gwenda online at http://gwendabond.typepad.com/ and on Twitter as @Gwenda

Katya’s World (Part 1 of The Russalka Chronicles) by Jonathan L Howard.

About the book:The distant and unloved colony world of Russalka has no land, only the raging sea. No clear skies, only the endless storm clouds. Beneath the waves, the people live in pressurised environments and take what they need from the boundless ocean. It is a hard life, but it is theirs and they fought a war against Earth to protect it. But wars leave wounds that never quite heal, and secrets that never quite lie silent.

Katya Kuriakova doesn’t care much about ancient history. She is making her first submarine voyage as an apprentice navigator; the first nice, simple journey of what she expects to be a nice, simple career. But there is nothing nice and simple about the deep, black waters of Russalka and soon she will encounter pirates and war criminals, see death and tragedy at first hand, and realise that her world’s future lies on the narrowest of knife edges.

For in the crushing depths lies a sleeping monster, an abomination of unknown origin. And when it wakes, it will seek out and kill every single person on the planet…

About the author: Jonathan L. Howard has been a game designer for the last twenty years, and a full-time author for the past three. He is the author of the Johannes Cabal series of novels. He lives near Bristol.

Visit Jonathan online at http://johannescabal.com/ and follow him on Twitter as @JonathanLHoward

I really love the way that Strange Chemistry is already announcing titles that span the genre world so well, I think there will be something to please everyone.