by Cookie N Screen

I always lovely darkly morbid books. I really have. I was recounting my favourite book list for a project and each one that I have read has a similar vein – there are either gothic horror romps with bloody bits in their full form (The Gargoyle, Frankenstein), thrillers following unrelenting murders and intellectual trilobites between cop and villain (Silence of the Lambs) or have a sarcastic narrator at the helm of it (Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging). Most importantly, the hero at the core of it is probably not the most charming or angelic – enthused with visceral and destructive paths (Filth). So when Horns came into my possession, I have to admit, I was in glee that it seemingly combined all the pleasures I have when reading.

by Charlotte Dibley

Frank — no ordinary sixteen-year-old — lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; & his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return — an event that explodes the mysteries of the past & changes Frank utterly.

by Hayley Charlesworth

On my 17th birthday, I was gifted a book by a friend that was quite unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Over the years, I have returned to that book numerous times, and each time have found something new to enjoy. As a 17 year old, it was the gore and horror, in my early 20s, it was the darkly erotic atmosphere. Now, I simply recognise it as a well-crafted, disturbing yet oddly sexy horror novel. The book is Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite.

Note: Poppy Z Brite now goes by the name Billy Martin and identifies as male. As such, while we will be using the name Brite in this review, we will also be using male pronouns.

by Emlyn Roberts-Harry

There are books that you loved as a kid which, when you read them again years later as (at least technically) an adult, don't really hold up. Whether they simply skew too young or rely too much on familiar characters and situations because children don't have the breadth of reading experience that adults do, novels aimed at younger readers can be frustrating for older people. The best children's books are the ones which manage to be accessible enough for young readers but deep enough for adults to get their teeth into as well - books which can truly be described as suitable for all ages. 

By Gemma Williams

It's been a long journey. Five Percy Jackson and the Olympian (PJO) books, and finally, five books in the Heroes of Olympus (HoO) series. Ten books set in a wonderfully magical world, yet was this highly anticipated book everything we expected it be, and how was the series overall?

By Anna Lee

A title that is enigmatic. Perhaps a little clichéd sounding. But that by no means conveys the heart wrenching drama of the book; which focuses on LGBT issues within the family courts and the tangled relationship caused by miscarriage, divorce and self-discovery.

It’s written by Jodi Picoult; author of My Sister’s Keeper, Handle with Care, Keeping Faith and many more. If any of you have read her stories you will understand the difficulty in explaining exactly what they’re about; the multiple point of views, subplots and fractured intercharacter relationships can be hard to adequately describe to someone who hasn’t read the book, yet I will give it my best shot. 

By Charlotte Dibley

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

A golden opportunity to write a book for children about an important subject which is ultimately squandered. 

by Hayley Charlesworth

Before this year’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Solomon Northup’s memoirs, Twelve Years a Slave wasn’t a huge work in the public consciousness. Sure, those with a vested interest in African-American history were aware of Northup’s story, but it wasn’t the account of slavery on everybody’s lips until a faithful and devastating adaptation from Steve McQueen. Luckily, Twelve Years a Slave is now in the spotlight as one of the most important, affecting, and accurate accounts of the darkest part of America’s history.

by Sarah Wagner

Tragic, complex and enlightening, Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing, explores the complexities of racial and sexual identity through the tumultuous relationship between two mixed-race women, Irene Redfield and Claire Kendry. 

by Cookie N Screen 

Dr. King Schultz: Actually, I was thinking of that poor devil you fed to the dogs today, D'Artagnan. And I was wondering what Dumas would make of all this.

Calvin Candie: Come again?

Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas. He wrote "The Three Musketeers." I figured you must be an admirer. You named your slave after his novel's lead character. If Alexander Dumas had been there today, I wonder what he would have made of it?

Calvin Candie: You doubt he'd approve?

Dr. King Schultz: Yes. His approval would be a dubious proposition at best.

Calvin Candie: Soft hearted Frenchy?

Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas was black.

This is an exchange from last year’s phenomenal Quentin Tarantino’s Western Django Unchained, which shocked a mostly ignorant audience watching, myself included and the fact had caused a trickle of confusion to kneed my brow. The author of one of the most famous French romps of literature history was, indeed, black. Descended from slavery, Alexandre Dumas was a literary icon who strived in his excellence and become a name on the wagging tongues of aristocracy, in a time where his skin colour and race where made mockery and treated inhumanely. Yet he has provided us with a book so undeniably good and rousing that it’s legacy still lives on.