Joyland - Stephen King

Stephen King – Joyland

Joyland has been written for a new imprint “Hard Case Crime”; aiming to bring readers hard boiled crime,  it has a very '50s noir sense of pulp fiction pulling together new commissions and lost classics.  This book certainly has the feel of a lost classic from King himself.  Although it is a crime story, a serial killer in a carnival, King adds his normal twists with reports of a haunting from a victim that can’t let go and a dying boy that needs to help free her.

 

This is a wonderful return to old school King.  All the familiar characters and themes  are there; the coming of age protagonist, the sick child with a special talent, the beautiful, out of reach girl, the knowing elder, a serial killer and a carnival set in the 1970s.  What makes this title special is that the writing is fresh and the storyline zips along. For people that have found recent King novels to be quite lengthy and thoughtful this will make a refreshing change.  At only 285 pages there is nothing here but action and suspense. I loved it!

Buy your copy from us via Amazon.

http://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwhurleybook-21/detail/1781162646

 

 

The Grim Company - Review

The Grim Company – Luke Scull

A new fantasy saga set in a society coping with the fallout from the destruction of the gods.  The war between the wizards and the gods resulted in the wizards gaining control and the bodies of the gods leaking wild magic all across the ravaged lands. 

This is an interesting idea as so often in fantasy sagas, the battle between the wizards and gods seems to be the conclusion of the book. By showing the aftermath of such a battle the author opens up a whole new area of disaster fiction. The writing is earthy, the scenario is bleak and blood thirsty and will appeal to fans of a more meatly style of fantasy.

Personally it didn't do it for me. If cliches don't cause you to wince you'll be fine, the ideas are good.

 

Available March 1st 2013

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter - Review

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter - Malcolm Mackay

A confident, new gritty noir thriller based in gangland Glasgow.

Callum is a hitman and has been hired to kill Lewis Winter, all he knows is that it will send out a message to someone. The problem is that the people who have hired Callum also don’t know who the message is for. Poor Lewis Winter is simply the first shot across the bows to persons unknown who are trying to muscle in on territory.

The story unfolds simply and quickly. MacKay’s writing style is brief, fluid and fresh and it gives us little more than pencil sketches of personalities and plot. However, it all starts to interweave building up a story far greater than simple stereotypes suggest. 

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, given that a gang land novel just didn't appeal but then good writing can make anything interesting! Try it for yourself.

 

Available Jan 17th 2013

This is what we are about!

It looks as if our website has been causing confusion so I've given it a few tweaks and whilst I'm at it I may as well remind everyone what we're about.

We are a second hand bookshop.  We also sell books online. We also have a sibling called The Cornish Bookshop.  In our bricks and mortar shop you can find a wide range of good quality second hand books.  Occasionally we carry some new titles (Harry Potter for example) and we have a small selection of new Cornish titles. Customers will sometimes ask us to order books for them, we will search for the cheapest and quickest that we can find. Often this means we use Amazon. By and large our customers understand this and aren't bothered. Those that don't like Amazon ask us not to order from them and we don't. We have lots of local and national wholesalers who we support but generally only for bulk orders, our discounts with them are low as we are a second hand book shop and don't place enough large orders with them, which is understandable.

The books we sell online are on Amazon, eBay, ABE and Alibris and stored in our warehouse. We don't handle these sales directly as we couldn't afford the fees for hosting our own site. Plus not enough people would visit our personal site to make it worthwhile. After all what are the chances that we will have the second hand copy of the book that you are looking for?

We have set up The Cornish Bookshop as a specialist site to help authors and publishers find an outlet for their books that doesn't cost them the earth. Amazon demand around 60% discount from the author / publisher to stock their titles which is really harsh, especially when we are talking about low print runs and small profit margins. The Cornish Bookshop as well as having its own site is also on the Amazon market place. Confusing? Not really. What it means is that for a small commission we get to sell these specialist titles to an enormous audience and the authors don't have to pay the 60% fees. (You see there's a lot going on behind the scenes).

We have a website (you're on it) where we just like to pull all the strands together. You can see the books we have in the warehouse if you go to our eBay home. On the Amazon link you can shop to your heart's content and we receive a little commission so you are still helping a local independent bookshop. Or you can browse our Cornish titles and support the local economy. Finally you can flip over to our Facebook page and see what's happening in the bricks and mortar shop.

Our views on Amazon. We understand that people want to support local bookshops and we love you for it but we do get surprised when sometimes people expect us to hate Amazon. We're all booksellers and just because they do it better than us doesn't mean that we're going to snub them (let's leave the tax issues to one side for now).  What Amazon can't do as well as us is offer a friendly informal chat but honestly people don't value that so much and that's OK we know the market that we're working in.

Our views on Kindle et al.  Well, this is a whole new ball game. As a bookseller I'm pretty much out of the loop because of the directness of the download.  I can live with that, the market for physical books is going to get smaller and tougher but Hurley Books is fine. After all we're second hand and specialist Cornish. We'll be around for a long time yet!

So that's us and I hope that makes sense.

Blue Fish - Review

Blue Fish – Pat Schmatz

When Travis joins his new school it’s clear that something is wrong in his life but he keeps his head down and tries to ignore everyone. However, he can’t ignore Velveeta who finds him intriguing and so she tries to find out what makes him tick.

It would be easy to see this as a predictable novel of friends united against an unfair world but something in the writing makes this a simple and touching tale of innocence trying to cope with an adult world of poverty, low expectations and alcoholism. It has a positive message and a positive ending and leaves you feeling a little bit heartbroken but also very happy and hopeful. 

This is one of those books that will be read very differently by children and adults. For children it is reassuring and redemptive, adults will be hit by the hopelessness of poverty and the narrowness of life expectation for some children. Nonetheless it really is a nice book!

 

Good for boys and girls, 10+

 

Available Now

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780763653347/pat-schmatz/bluefish

The Heresy of Dr Dee - review

The Heresy of Dr Dee – Phil Rickman

A supernatural thriller set in the Court of Elizabeth 1st.  This unusual book draws on two famous characters from Elizabethan England; the renowned Dr Dee, famous magician, astrologer and academic and Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s great love.  In this book the two men are friends and set off to Wales to find a rare scrying stone. However, they get caught up in local tensions as a murderer is brought to trial who has channelled the spirit of a long dead Welsh rebel.

Extra spice is added by a plot to kill Dudley to prevent him marrying the Queen. Rickman always writes with a great sense of atmosphere and in this book ancient and modern evils collide in a brutal conclusion.

 

So I managed to finish this book but I was disappointed. Rickman used to write really excellent supernatural thrillers, try Crybbe for a good example, but this was just daft.  Far too many coincidences were relied on to drive the plot forward and too many deus ex machinas were wheeled out to save the day. Sorry.

A day in the life of Mevagissey.

Welcome to a day in the life of a Mevagissey bookseller.  Well it starts as always with a box full of books in the car and a drive in from St Austell. Today was hellishly windy but as I dropped down into the village the wind seemed to die down, clearly Heligan was taking the brunt of the winds.  I drove down Jetty Street parked up and unloaded. This is always a tricky effort but easier in winter, this morning I am unimpeded by any other traffic and I drive off to park at the lighthouse.  I could park in one of the other car parks, but I love walking out by the sea, dodging the seaweed strewn road and the splashing waves.  It’s also the cheapest place to park  which helps!

Walking back to the shop I’m stopped by a couple in a car who ask me if I’m local. Now there’s a question.  I doubt there are many other places in the world where such an innocent sounding question is laden with problems. No, I’m not local, I come from St Austell but even there I’m not local, I used to live up country, worse yet my parents aren’t local either, neither are their parents. However, these guys are on holiday and just want to know if the Wheelhouse serves breakfasts. As if to underline how much of a local I’m not, I don’t know the answer. Frustratingly the wife pipes up “Only we saw people in there eating breakfast…” Grrr, well surely that answers your own question!? On I stroll and pause to watch a cormorant sunning himself on a rock and think about how gorgeous life is sometimes, so long as you choose not to focus on stupid questions.

The day progresses along normal lines, as we have the new EV Thompson in, lots of people are popping in to collect their copy and all of them stop to share a story with me. They are really entertaining but I’m not getting anything done. He was a lovely gentleman and is clearly missed by a lot of people. Here in the village he was well known and loved, not because he was famous but because he was good. Other people wander in for a browse and find some book that they can’t do without. Others baulk at £3 and point out that they can get it for a pound at their local car boot sale. Hmm, off you go then.

Out in the street the wind is picking up but unfortunately for the Mevagissey Lights Committee this is also when they need to hang the new lights.  Jetty Street is getting some amazing strands of lights running the entire length; they are going to look stunning. The lights committee are swearing as the lights refuse to switch on but the wind is whipping away any offending words and only the gulls are assaulted by the words and God knows they’ve had worse directed right at them. 

By three the heavens open and the road is white with bouncing rain. By four I have my ark built and head home, I stop at Kim’s to buy some fish and have to laugh. She was telling me when it started raining she was chatting to some of the fisherman who promptly bolted at the first drop of rain. Now there’s a group of men that you’d think wouldn’t melt in the rain.  Then again, I should imagine that they have to put up with more than their fair share at sea. Getting wet inland is just too much.  The road outside the firestation is flooded but there are people out helping to direct the traffic through the shallowest section. And then I’m off home again, driving out of Mevagissey and thinking about what a great day it’s been despite the atrocious weather.