All you need to know about books at www.booksmonthly.co.uk                                                     Issue 4 July 2008

In this issue: interviews with ELIZABETH GEORGE and AMANDA GREENSLADE plus features on THE LAST REALM, the ASTOR CHRONICLES, and a new short story by RAFE McGREGOR ~ plus all this month's major book issues reviewed and pages and pages of new titles! Oh, and by the way, the school story gets a much needed shot in the arm - see below and on the Children's Book Reviews page!

Every so often a book is published that changes the way we think about the printed word. We've had sumptuous art books for many years; fantasy volumes of artists such as Boris are now commonplace where they used to be collectors' items, only to be found in specialist shops. The world of fantasy literature is well-served by jaw-droppingly good cover art, and there are plenty of illustrated books around. THE LAST REALM, by Pat McNamara, Michal Dutkiewicz and Gary Turner, breaks the mould. It's a coffee table book, so you couldn't read it on the train (unless you had your own carriage...), and you'd struggle to read it in bed. But read it you must - it's a totally new concept in fantasy literature - an oversized book with a cracking story and out-of-this-world illustrations. It is, of course, my Fantasy Book of the Month and you can read more about it on the fantasy reviews page. In addition, you'll find more illustrations from the book and some extra Michal Dutkiewicz illustrations in the feature article on this most handsome of volumes....

Lynley is axed by the BBC but the novels keep coming...

ELIZABETH GEORGE: CARELESS IN RED ~ It is barely three months since the murder of his wife and Thomas Lynley takes to the South-West Coast Path in Cornwall, determined to walk its length in an attempt to distract himself from his loss. On the forty-third day of this walk, he sees a cliff climber fall to his death a death apparently witnessed by a surfer in a nearby cove. Shortly afterwards, Lynley encounters a young woman from Bristol whose personal history is a blank before her thirteenth year. These events propel him into a case that brings Barbara Havers from London and thrusts both detectives into a world where revenge is only one of the motives they must sift through to identify a killer. There will be an interview with Elizabeth George in the next issue.

The school story gets a new champion at last - Carmen Reid brings her unique talents to late night feasts in the dorm and first fumblings with boys...

CARMEN REID: SECRETS AT ST JUDE'S ~ Gina's mother is fed up with her staying out late, spending too much money on clothes and too much time IM-ing her friends. But her solution to sort out her wayward LA IT girl is pretty drastic - she's sending Gina to Scotland to go to the same boarding school she attended. Suddenly taken from a world of malls, mobile phones, en-suite wet-rooms, designer clothes and sophisticated boys, Gina is suddenly forced to find her way through games of hockey, communal meals and showers, horrible public schoolboys and stuffy housemistresses. Will she ever survive? Her dorm buddies might just help - they're a strange bunch but they seem to be good fun ...And there are always the boys from the local school to help keep them entertained. From the Back Cover: Ohmigod! Gina's mum has finally flipped and is sending her to Scotland to some crusty old boarding school called St Jude's - just because Gina spent all her money on clothes and got a few bad grades! It's so unfair! Now the Californian mall-rat has to swap her sophisticated life of pool parties and well-groomed boys for . . . hockey in the rain, school dinners and stuffy housemistresses. And what's with her three kooky dorm-buddies . . . could they ever be her friends? And just how does a St Jude's girl get out to meet the gorgeous guys invited to the school's summer ball? An addictive read. A hilarious read. A Carmen Reid.

If you were lucky, and you're a dad, you might have received a copy of this fantastic book on Father's Day! Neil Oliver, the historian from the smash BBC series COAST, retells the stories that inspired us to be better men during the last century. He laments... more

I've started to bring in some of the feature articles from the old Gateway site, but it's going to be a long job, so please bear with me. If you open up the "Feature articles and stories" menu you'll find a features archive. Next month I'll begin on the stories, so that by the end of the year everything from the Gateway archives will have been transferred to the Books Monthly archive. I hope you enjoyed the May issue, and I hope you enjoy this issue even more! What Iam certain of is this: if you're a lover of books, you cannot fail to find something to interest you in BOOKS MONTHLY! Let me know what you think of this issue by e-mailing me at editor@booksmonthly.co.uk

Amanda Greenslade is a fantasy writer, like me (except she's young enough to be my granddaughter, and therefore has time on her side!). Her ASTOR CHRONICLES look fantastic, and I hope it won't be long before she finds a publisher. In the meantime, there's an interview with Amanda in this issue, together with information on TALON, the first book in the series.

KELLEY ARMSTRONG's latest book, THE SUMMONING, is so good I had to give it joint book of the month in the fantasy section; Kelley never lets you down, and this is a terrific read, chilling and entertaining at the same time - don't miss it!

And don't forget, you can purchase any of the titles you read about in BOOKS MONTHLY at the Booksmonthly Online Amazon store, just click on the Amazon logo anywhere in the magazine.

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk. If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!