Month: September 2020

Sword in the Storm – David Gemmell

~ Eden Haslam ~ 1 Comment

Born in the storm that kills his father, Connavar grows up among the mountains of Caer Druagh, where the Rigante tribe dwell in harmony with the land and its gods.

But beyond the border, across the water, an evil force is gathering strength – an unstoppable force that will change the world beyond all recognition.

Haunted by malevolent spirits and hunted by evil men, Connavar sets out on a spectacular mission to defeat this new enemy… But he is a troubled soul, dogged by fate – will he be able to defend his tribe and save his people?

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Review: When I initially started reading this book, I was a bit unsure about it. Because Gemmell has set up a whole world filled with tradition and myth there is a lot of information thrown at you and a lot of characters whose names I kept forgetting!

That being said, once I got into the story any doubts I had melted away. The protagonist Connavar is a man of two halves – on the one side he is a perfect hero, selfless, charming, a fearless and skilled warrior with the capabilities to save his people, but, on the other side he is deeply flawed with a quick temper and thirst for revenge. He feels the pressure of his heroic reputation and desperately does not want to disappoint.  I liked the fact that he was not perfect. He faces consequences for his ‘wrong’ actions and is driven by his emotions which is highly relatable.

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The Book Club – C.J. Cooper

~ Eden Haslam ~ Leave a comment

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Synopsis: Lucy moves to an idyllic village in the Cotswolds to escape a failed affair with her boss back in London. She’s hoping to leave her old life behind her and start anew somewhere peaceful, far away from prying eyes. And then her new neighbour Alice moves in. Lucy decides straight away that there is something wrong with Alice, that this woman cannot be trusted. But, when a book club is suggested, all Lucy can do is sit and watch as her friends are manipulated and secrets are exposed. It turns out that things in the village are not as quiet as they seem.

This story alternates between the perspectives of Lucy, Alice, and the other members of the book club – Rebecca, Maggie, and Tom. Using flashbacks, it follows the game of cat-and-mouse between Lucy and Alice, culminating in a show-down as Alice attempts to get her perfectly planned revenge.

Review: This book perfectly captures the uneasy, shivers-up-your-spine, constantly-looking-over-your-shoulder feeling of having your every move watched. It even managed to put me on edge when I know I have no creepy neighbour watching me so have nothing to fear! Alice is the perfect antagonist, so cold and calculating that throughout the book you are poised, waiting for her to finally reveal her true nature, and praying that the characters will realise the type of person she really is before it is too late.

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The Power – Naomi Alderman

~ Eden Haslam ~ 2 Comments

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Synopsis: The Power is framed as a research/book proposal, with letters before and after the story between the author Neil, and Naomi. Acting as an in-depth exploration of what would happen if teenage girls gained the power to produce electricity from their fingertips, the book flips societal power structures and gives women the chance to decide how they want to world to run.

The novel is focused on four main characters who represent the responses of different stakeholders within society – crime, religion, politics, and media. There’s a crime boss’ daughter Roxy who has extremely powerful abilities, Allie, an abused foster child who becomes a religious leader, middle-aged US politician Margot whose daughter gives her the power, and Tunde, a Nigerian male who first captures women displaying abilities on camera and travels around reporting on how women’s powers are affecting the world. Each of these characters are followed throughout the different sections of the book which count down ten years from the Day of the Girls to the Cataclysm.

Review: I have found this book extremely difficult to rate and review. The premise – what would happen if women suddenly had the capacity to produce electricity from their fingers – is clever and intriguing and, although producing a thought-provoking exploration of a shift in the balance of power between the sexes, risks overwhelming the story itself. Each section of the book counted down towards the Cataclysm, and yet, the story did not always feel like it was going somewhere. Instead, the story got lost behind an exploration of a concept and jumped around too much towards the end of the book to allow a coherent progression.

This being said, it did not stop me from devouring this book in a matter of days. I was desperate to learn where each character’s story was going and how their power would affect them and their decisions. Although I did find some characters more engaging than others, I enjoyed how they were used to explore different aspects of society and found the similarities between the female characters’ responses to their new-found power interesting.

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Upskilling: Digital Marketing

~ Eden Haslam ~ Leave a comment

I have recently completed Google Digital Garage’s course Fundamentals of Digital Marketing. This (supposedly) 40-hour course contains 26 modules which cover the basics of how to successfully take a business online and discusses the different ways businesses can use marketing strategies to reach their goals – be it to improve their audience reach, site views, or generating more income from online sales.

The 26 modules are divided into topics:

  • Take a business online which focuses on building a web presence and planning an online business strategy
  • Make it easy for people to find a business of the web discussing the use of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
  • Reach more people locally, on social media or on mobile
  • Reach more customers with advertising which gives information on advertising through emails, videos, and display advertising
  • Track and measure web traffic discussing how analytics can be used to identify how well your online business is performing and where the best areas for improvement are
  • Sell products or services online showing how E-commerce can be used to sell products through your own website
  • Take a business global which gives ideas on how to successfully expand internationally by recognising the importance of determining where there is a demand for your product and ensuring you make the appropriate changes to overcoming any language, legal, or financial barriers

This course has hugely helped me improve my understanding of digital marketing strategies and the place digital marketing has in today’s world. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone wishing to improve their digital marketing skills. It’s free and you get a certificate at the end proving you have completed the course!

You can find the link to Google Digital Garage here and the digital marketing course here

The Book of Hidden Things – Francesco Dimitri

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

Synopsis: The Book of Hidden Things starts with a Pact. Four friends agree that on a specific day, time, and place every year they will return to their hometown in Southern Italy. They are unsure, after so many years, why they still adhere to this Pact, but none wish to be the reason their enduring bond is broken. Except this year, one of them does not show up. Art, the charismatic and brilliantly curious leader of the group is missing. His phone unanswered, his house messy but empty.

In attempting to discover what has happened to Art, his friends Fabio – a photographer whose life is unravelling, Tony – trapped in a conflict between his sexuality and spirituality, and Mauro – the sensible one, disappointed with the route his life has taken, get drawn in to a world fraught with magical possibility and danger. They believe his disappearance now is linked to his disappearance as a fourteen-year old, but without knowing what happened then, they struggle to discern what the truth might be.

The Book of Hidden Things walks the line between two worlds – a world of the supernatural, filled with spirits and mystery, and the traditional world steeped in religion and fear of the mafia who control the goings on. Split between the points of view of Fabio, Tony, and Mauro, each man has his own distinct voice as they put together the pieces of Art’s life, ultimately discovering a book that he has written which attempts to explain the unexplainable: The Book of Hidden Things.

Review: This book is intensely readable. So quickly you are drawn into the world of the four friends, both due to the detail in which Salento is described, oppressive through its tradition and heat, and through the thrilling nature of Art’s disappearance. The way Dimitri manages to balance the different elements of fantasy, thriller, spirituality, and supernatural is impressive. In a lesser author’s hands these elements could feel like a mix of literary techniques just forced together, but this is not the case for this book.

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