It comes as quite a shock at the beginning of the fifth chapter of "Swann" to be reminded that Sarah Maloney, Morton Jimroy, Rose Hindmarch and Frederick Cuzzi area all fictional characters. By that time, having read each of their brushes with Mary Swann (who is also fictitious) and her poetry, you feel that you'd recognize them in a crowd.

In this early novel, Carol Shields shows the talent developed in later works, especially her penchant for using disparate literary styles to tell the story. Her characters are so beautifully formed; they leap from the page and demand you get to know them. Locations are so vividly described, you feel you could immediately find them, should you be transported to Chicago, Palo Alto, Nardeau or Kingston.

In 1965, within hours of submitting her body of work, written on scraps of paper and stored in a paper bag, to literary publisher and newspaper owner, Frederick Cruzzi, Mary Swann, a "primitive" poet from rural Canada, was hacked to pieces by her violent brute of a husband. The 125 poems were subsequently published in a small, stapled pamphlet with a limited run of 250 copies, most of which Cruzzi and his wife ended up giving away.

Many years after publication, Sarah Maloney, a feminist scholar of some note, found a copy in the limited selection or reading material in a remote cottage on a lake in Wisconsin, where she'd gone to have a good long, hard think about her life. Intrigued, she set out to find out more about Swann and her poetry, and soon was in correspondence with a select little group of assorted fans and scholars, including pretentious Morton Jimroy, self-appointed biographer, spinsterly Rose Hindmarch, librarian who lent books to Swann, worldwise Frederick Cuzzi, publisher to whom Swann entrusted her work.

The present time of the book is 1987, and the first ever Swann Symposium is about to take place. Strange things start happening with Swann memorabilia - Sarah's copy of "Swann's Songs" can't be found; Cruzzi's house is burgled and the only things missing are the four copies of the pamphlet he'd retained; one of the two known photographs of Mary Swann goes missing from the Nardeau library.

In this fascinating tale, it's intriguing how the threads of Mary Swann's life slowly pull together, even as she seems to be disappearing forever and how the works of an extremely little known poet, dead for more than 20 years, cause such bitter rivalries, jealousies and criminal behaviour. But even as she becomes more ephemeral, her effect on her admirers becomes more profound.

The first four chapters, almost novellas, of this book titled "Mary Swan" in the British edition I found in my library, each tell of a central character's encounter with Swann and/or her work. The Swan Symposium, the final chapter, is written as a play, which I thought at first was a little precious. Then I realised that since it all took place in a hotel and was mostly dialogue anyway, what better way of expressing it. Readers are spared all the words normally used to pad dialogue out into sentences. "Bit part" players are given beautifully descriptive names like Butter Mouth, Merry Eyes, Silver Cufflinks, Woman with Turban, Woman in Pale Suede Boots, Wistful Demeanour and Crinkled Forehead - that's all you need to picture them.

"Swann" has been described as a "literary mystery" but it's not a traditional mystery with a detective following up clues - in fact, I think to categorise it as a mystery is to sell this rich and intriguing work short. If you want to categorise it at all, it's a beautifully subtle satire aimed at the pretentiousness found in the literary world. If any of Ms Shields' novels were worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, this is the one.

I've read several of Carol Shields works and, with the exception of "Stone Diaries", each has usurped the last as my favourite. This is a little worrying, since I've been working my way backwards through the list. I guess I'll have to stop now.

My friend, Sue, has been recommending Tami Hoag for years and I recently picked up "Night Sins".

Let me say, my environment and that in the novel could hardly be more different. In Australia, January is mid-summer, and Adelaide has just endured two January heatwaves (the average temperature for January was 101 degrees, up to 112 one day!) and we have just entered our third heatwave of the summer. And there I was, reading a story set in the Minnesotan winter month of January, with a windchill factor of minus 62 degrees. I cannot imagine such cold! We start whining when the thermometer drops to the (plus) 60's!

I found this novel impossible to put down. I don't know why, because when put under my reviewing microscope, I found plenty of things to criticise.

"Night Sins" is a bodice ripper, disguised as a thriller - the crime is just incidental to the "romance". Megan's bodice starts heaving and Mitch's pants start getting too tight (well, they would have, had he been wearing some) the moment they lock eyes. How professional is that? For someone with all her rules, she got her knickers off pretty quickly, not that she had much of a chance with Mitch's unrelenting persistence. They spend so much of the novel having little spats and then making up, the other characters are justified in their derision (if not in the way they go about it). I was not surprised to find Ms Hoag started out as a romance writer. She hasn't moved on - had Mitch been an 18th century pirate or highwayman and Megan a damsel, the sex would have been the same. This book almost needs a plain, brown wrapper! Or Fabio in an unzipped parka on the cover (not the unexplained empty sneaker on the copy I read) - at least that would have issued some sort of warning about the contents.

Okay, being a woman in the male bastion of law enforcement is difficult, frustrating, etc. After being told that every ten or so pages, I think we get it.

Why do all these lead characters (and that includes the parents) have to be dysfunctional? Oh, for just one normal, well-adjusted human being with scruples - none here, I'm afraid. Maybe Natalie, but her part was really small.

For someone who had a migraine, the beginnings of one, or the aftermath of one, during the entire story, Megan and her medicine cabinet purse managed to rise through the ranks of the BCA pretty sensationally. The last thing I'd expect anyone to want during a migraine is sex, even with a Harrison Ford look-alike (right down to the scar on the chin - puh-leese). After all Ms Hoag's casting advice, I'm wondering who they got to play the role in the mini-series - not Ford, I'm guessing.

Metaphors are useful literary devices. That does not mean every sentence needs one. Many of them were quite clever, but the sheer number of them had me groaning.

How long would a TV reporter like Paige Price, or a Sheriff like Steiger, last in the real world? Don't both professions have codes of conduct, and people they report to? They were SO ridiculously, laughably bad.

Somehow, it was practically impossible to have any sympathy for the parents of the abducted boy. The father was such a rat, and the mother such a saint, I just wanted to bang their heads together. And when the mother's bodice started heaving for the priest, and his trousers started swelling, well ... you know where this is going.

The best (and worst) part of this book is the weather - best because it's well written and so extreme (to me, anyway) as to be interesting, and worst, because without it, the novel would mercifully have been at least 200 pages shorter.

After 540 pages, you still have no idea of why the baddie did it, who he's in league with, where the kid was, what happened to him, or anything. Oh yeah, you find out at the "end" that this is a two-parter and you're expected to wade through another 500 pages or so of clichés, metaphors, stereotyped characters and steamy sex to find out. And all the copies of "Guilty as Sin" at my libraries (I'm not buying this rubbish!) are out on loan - dammit!

I've stated before that I love novels based on the Arthurian legend, and enjoyed Stephen Lawhead's previous five novels in The Pendragon Cycle - "Taliesin", "Merlin", "Arthur", "Pendragon" and "Grail" - immensely. What a pity he didn't know when to stop.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Arthurian legend knows that Arthur is expected to return in Britain's greatest hour of need. One would have thought there have been plenty of opportunities for him to put in an appearance in the last 1500 years, so he must be waiting for the really BIG need - this wasn't it.

In "Avalon", the republican Prime Minister, determined to be the first President of Britain, had managed to push through four referendums on the way to dissolving the monarchy. Everyone known to be in line for the throne had already signed away any claim and when Edward the Ninth, the last of an ever-increasingly dissolute and debauched line, suicided in his Portugese retreat, the monarchy seemed doomed. Only one final referendum remained to make the dissolution permanent. The Prime Minister's best-laid plans seemed complete. Of course, he reckoned without the mysterious and ageless M(erlin) Embries. James Arthur Stuart, a young ex-soldier living in the Scottish highlands, suddenly discovers his hidden parentage, becomes heir to the large (and amazingly wealthy) estate on which the person he knew as his father worked, and then finds he not only has a legitimate claim to the throne, but that he is Arthur, reborn. This silly, contrived constitutional crisis is what Arthur has been waiting all those years for? I don't think so!!

Compared to Lawhead's other works, this novel is appalling, but it would have been bad, whoever wrote it. The characters are hardly even one-dimensional, the dialogue is unspeakable and the story is thin and totally improbable, given it's present day setting. The style of writing is stilted and flat, nothing seems to flow and draw the reader in. It just seems to be a series of statements, interspersed with dialogue that no person, modern or ancient, would utter. Once I started hating things, I just found more to hate on each page. When fantasy and modern times co-exist in a novel, it usually only succeeds when the modern-day person is taken into the fantasy milieu. In this novel, a fantasy figure is reborn into a Britain resplendent with Jaguar cars, remote control TVs, skinheads and pit-bull terriers; it just can't work. The scene with James in unarmed combat against pipe and chain wielding gangs of skinheads while 4,000 people stand around gawping and the police fall over themselves was just plain ridiculous. Prime Minister Thomas Waring is a character so badly developed and absurd that one can hardly imagine he was created by the same author responsible for the wonderful characters populating the previous novels in this cycle. The man-who-would-be-king inherits what must be the only solvent estate in Britain (with all it's treasure) and even has a girlfriend named Jennifer, for goodness sake. She just happens to be a potter, which seemed to me a contrived occupation until the reason was revealed in the final, incredibly silly showdown with the reborn (you guessed it!) Morgain, another badly drawn and poorly used character.

Anyone is allowed one bad novel, but I find it almost impossible to belive that someone who could write "Taliesin", "Byzantium" and "The Endless Knot" was capable of writing something so bad. If this was the first thing I'd read by Stephen Lawhead, it would have been the last, but even though the time taken to wade through this mess was wasted, I've spent many enjoyable hours immersed in the worlds he's created. So long as he keeps at least a millennium between me and his stories, I'll continue to give them the benefit of the doubt (in fact, I just borrowed "The Iron Lance" from the library today).

I've only awarded one star in order to save this review.

"As a baby, Tom Avery had twenty-seven mothers. So he says. That was almost forty years ago." As opening paragraphs go, if this one doesn't make you want to read on, then nothing will. I started reading this in bed one Sunday morning and didn't get up until it was finished.

Fay McLeod wakes up one morning knowing she no longer loves the man in the bed beside her, with whom she has lived for five years. Truth be known, he no longer loves her, either; their relationship had just slipped into complacency and joint commitments. But alone, she finds she really is just one half of an incomplete couple. Where does one find love? How does one remain in love? After all, as the title suggests, it's everyone's right to experience love.

Fay is close to her family; her parents, brother, his family, and her sister. She has many friends, mainly through her absorbing work as a folklorist with a special interest in mermaids. Her work links her to the past, and to fantasy - could she be using that to escape reality?

Before reaching forty, Tom Avery has been divorced three times. He hadn't chosen partners very wisely, but at least he's remained friendly with two of his ex-wives and they are part of his extensive social circle. Without actually vowing to never marry again, he knows he isn't good marriage material, and spends most Friday nights attending singles meetings, supposedly to learn new skills, but in reality to check out availability of potential partners. He also concentrates his energies on friends, associates and his work as the popular host of a midnight to dawn radio program.

Considering his circle, and Fay's circle contained so many people in common, it was surprising they'd never met. However, a chance encounter at the birthday party of Fay's nephew where he'd come to collect his godson and she'd come to deliver a present on the eve of a European study tour, leads to a strong mutual attraction. So strong, that after only a walk home (they lived across the street from each other) in the company of an eight year old boy, Tom tracks down her address in Europe and professes his love, a madly passionate airletter posted before allowing himself to think better of it.

What is love? In this book, Carole Shields has used none of the artifice apparent in later novels; it's just a beautifully written exploration of love, finding it, keeping it, regaining it and allowing yourself to yield to it. Around Tom and Fay, finely developed secondary characters go though their own love crises - the path of love is hardly ever smooth. It is a hopeful, heart-warming and satisfying novel. Plus you find out quite a lot about Winnepeg, mermaids and late-night radio.

Several years ago, an elderly friend recommended Carol Shields. Recently I started with "Larry's Party", which announced it was by the author of "The Stone Diaries", which in turn proclaimed to be by the author of "The Republic of Love". Since these books seem to be their own best recommendations, I'm now going to take the advice of "The Republic of Love" and look even further back into her list for "Swann" and "The Orange Fish".

Alex Delaware returns .... again. In this novel, Alex's best friend, LA cop Milo Sturgis, requests his company on a visit to the facility housing some of the state's criminally insane while investigating the macabre death of a resident psychologist. Before long, they get caught up in a bizarre web of family secrets, revenge and deeply psychotic behaviour, culminating in the "life or death" scene we expect from Jonathan Kellerman.

Unlike a lot of reviewers, I was grateful for the small amount of character development achieved in this novel. Maybe that's because Kellerman is now writing for a particular audience of Delaware fans, and can assume familiarity with his characters. For the first time I can remember, Milo's sexual preferences were implied rather than proselytised and Alex and Robin's relationship seems to have settled into a comfort zone, thank goodness. Her work as a luthier was interesting at first, but I don't need in-depth descriptions in every novel - there was just enough in this one to show she's an independent gal. After all, these novels are supposed to be thrillers, not guitar making manuals, whatever the author's personal interest. And, thankfully, the house is finished, so we are done with endless building details.

Some reviewers say "Monster" forms a departure from the child psychology more usual in Kellerman's Delaware novels, but just consider when most of the victims/suspects suffered the trauma that lead to their adult behaviour.

I don't know how many police forces would grant a civilian, albeit an occasional consultant, as much investigational liberty as Delaware enjoys with the LAPD - they seem to be better served by a psychologist than trained officers. Happily for them, Delaware set off on the right trail almost immediately, while Milo first pursued the obligatory red herrings and chased the wild geese. I'm no rocket scientist, but I had the "monster" pegged pretty early on.

I once collected Kellerman novels (both J & F), but after the awful "The Web", happily donated them to my local library some years ago. I bought this one as part of a selection (give Delaware one more try, I thought) to gain bonus shopping points at a city department store and read it in one day just over a week ago - I've almost forgotten it already. Either I'm losing my taste for this kind of thriller (I hope not), or Kellerman is losing his edge.

Still, even a journeyman Kellerman novel is usually better than the average thriller, though I'm probably biased since I'm a bit of a fan of Milo and Alex, and enjoyed seeing what these familiar characters were up to. And it was great to see Kellerman return to this milieu after the extremely ordinary "Billy Straight".

If you need something that will keep you turning the pages on a long flight or for holiday or vacation reading, you could do a lot worse.

I've long been fascinated by Stonehenge. Many people think the Druids built it for their rituals and celestial observations, but it's now widely accepted that Stonehenge far pre-dates Druids, and was probably built by Neolithic people. It's a remarkable feat of engineering on any scale, but that's not what I find most intriguing. I've always wondered *why* it was built, and more particularly, why so many huge bluestone rocks were transported more than 135 miles (as the crow flies) from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, the only place where that kind of rock occurs in the British Isles, to Salisbury Plain. If they just wanted to build a "machine" to take astrological sightings, you'd have thought it would have been far easier to use reasonably local rocks, such as those used for the giant Sarcen stones, for the entire structure. The Neolithic builders, however, chose to undertake the extraordinary task of transporting this unique bluestone, either by an incredibly difficult sea and river voyage, or (less likely) by a seemingly impossible land route. Why? There had to be some overwhelmingly good reason, but none I have heard so far have seemed powerful enough. How did they get to know about that bluestone, anyway? Package holiday to Wales, perhaps?

In "Stonehenge", Bernard Cornwell put forward a powerful enough reason so that I could believe human beings would undertake this endeavour. Although the actual religious rituals the people of this age obeyed are not recorded, there is evidence that human sacrifice was practiced. That points to a pretty powerful and demanding religious system and history continues to show that those running religious systems are always the most power hungry. The best way they could think of to gain and retain their power was to make the gods stop the desperately cold winters, thus halting the resultant famines, etc. And that called for increasingly more powerful rituals.

A man who stole his tribe's golden religious artefacts travelled far in an attempt to consult an ancient mystic, but instead was killed by one of the three sons of the leader of a tribe resident in the area now known as Salisbury Plain. The artefacts were added to the hoard of that leader, and some were used to purchase stone from a nearby tribe for modest temple improvements. The original holders of the artefacts, who just happened to come from a region near the Preseli Mountains, tracked them down but the new holders requested something in return for them - one of their temples. And in their desperation for the return of their treasure, the Welsh tribe agreed.

Of course, simply transporting the stones and re-erecting the temple would be far too easy. Around this framework, Cornwell weaves a story of murder, jealousy, revenge, ferocious and bloody battles, bizarre and superstitious religious rituals, insanity, brutality, mysticism, and everything else you could want from a thriller. His talent for characterisation makes you almost cheer out loud for the goodies and hiss at the baddies, even while you realise you are being fed standard thriller fare. The story centres on the three brothers, and you can guess there is a too-good-to-be-true hero, an out-and-out baddie and one that is turned by circumstances into an insane despot.

I'm not generally a fan of war books, so of Cornwell's huge list of books, the only ones I've read (and thoroughly enjoyed, let me say) were Cornwell's three-book re-telling of the Arthurian legend, "The Warlord Chronicles" (I even reviewed the third, "Excalibur") and found the same well-researched, dramatic and realistic style I enjoyed in those books continued in "Stonehenge". Of course, the standard thriller population of incredibly handsome/beautiful, extraordinarily accomplished at an unbelievably young age, heroes and heroines live in this tale, only these aren't rich, and mostly they're not terribly clean, either. Cornwell skilfully puts them into an environment where you can almost see, smell, taste, hear and feel all their experiences. You can understand their motivations, admire their endeavour and appreciate their efforts. Perhaps the characters are not as refined as those in "The Warlord Chronicles", but I'm quite happy to accept the Neoliths lived in an extremely brutal time, and Arthur .... well, it's fantasy, isn't it. However, while realizing it was pivotal, I did find the constant religious stuff dragged on, and I was quite happy not to read another battle scene by the time I got to the end.

I've seen plenty of documentaries and read many books where the so-called experts put forward their ideas of the wheres and whys that lead to the building of this extraordinary, enigmatic erection. While Cornwell hasn't really come up with any new ideas, he's just dramatically presented them in a realistic and believable way.

If Stonehenge wasn't created in this way, well ... until someone comes up with a better explanation, I'm sticking with this.

I have to start by telling you I love Arthurian inspired novels. I've read and collected many over the years, from T.H.White's "The Once and Future King", Mary Stewart's trilogy, Stephen Lawhead's five book "Pendragon Cycle", along with books by Sharon Newman, Richard Monaco, A.A. Attanasio, Marion Zimmer Bradley, etc, etc, etc. Ever since I read the "The Sword in the Stone" in primary school, I have been spellbound by the story, and enjoy seeing each writer's perspective in their interpretation of the tale.

Bernard Cornwell's interpretation of the Arthurian legend, "The Warlord Chronicles" begun with "The Winter King" and followed by "Enemy of God" and "Excalibur" is, in my opinion, the best so far. The Chronicles take the form of a reflection written by Derfal, one of Arthur's warriors, in old age retired to a monastery. Derfal delights in working behind his abbot's back (he was an old enemy), but he has the protection of his Queen, desperate for a good story. During his time with Arthur, Derfal rose through the ranks to become a brave and loyal commander and a trusted confidant. His position allowed him unique insight into the character of Arthur and all the other figures prominent in the legend. His personal journey leads to love and eventual marriage to a high borne woman, the joy and despair of fatherhood, finding his true ancestry and conversion from paganism to the fledgling Christianity.

Most people are familiar in some way with the bones of the Arthurian legend, so I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot. Without deviating too far from the accepted story, in this retelling, Cornwell gives the legend substance. What makes it stand apart is the way he fleshes out the characters so they take on a reality other writers can only dream of (Nimue is particularly good). Cornwell's writing flows so effortlessly, and you quickly become engrossed by the people, the places and the strategy. You can smell the fires, taste the food and wine, feel the harsh winter cold, hear the terrified screams of women and children and see the battles unfold before you. I never thought I would enjoy reading battle scenes, but these (and there are many) are so well written, I didn't skip a word. The motivations of characters, explained by the often cruel and harsh lives they endured, become real. Life was just one huge struggle, no matter where and to whom you were born.

"The Warlord Chronicles", which should be read in sequence, is a must for all fans of the Arthurian legend, but anyone who enjoys a well-written story of high adventure will find much to appreciate here.

This popped up on the "Page you made" box a few minutes ago, and I just had to stop and write something about it. The Worthing Saga was among the earliest of Orson Scott Card's books I read and I remember it fondly. Together with Ender's Game and Treason, it made me realise this writer had something to say that I wanted to read.

Many people I know dismiss science fiction as a genre - I guess they've been scared off by some representations of aliens and robots and stuff. They don't realise what a wide range of work falls into this category, and even though I have become a SF fan over the past 20 years or so, there is a lot of stuff in the genre that doesn't interest me. But there is no other form of fiction that sets my mind working the way SF does, and I will never stop trying to get people to experience that for themselves.

Because I want people to read something that opens up their minds to possibility (without scaring them off) and want to share Card's writing, I recommend this book without mentioning anything about SF. After the initial shock of finding they've been tricked into reading SF, they usually realise they're reading a wonderful story, intelligently and skilfully told by one of our time's great storytellers. Somehow, people who have no problem reading fiction about people pioneering the vast, unexplored spaces of America, Australia, or any other earth-bound place, seem to have a problem reading of space pioneers. That's why I call this "entry level SF" - basically, this story is not so dissimilar from many of those stories of pioneers; the trials, tribulations and perseverence of the characters differ only in the technical details. However, this story has the good fortune of being told by Orson Scott Card, a writer who manages to make me feel I have only gained from seeing life from his viewpoint.

'Utterly engaging' screams the quote on the cover, then you notice it refers to a different book. Take that as a warning. Even the publishers couldn't find anything good to say about this effort.

Midnight Come is supposed to be a clerical whodunit, a murder mystery set within the religious community surrounding Canterbury Cathedral in England. For the first 20 pages or so, I thought the author might bravely be attempting to create the olde-worlde "gas and gaiters" style of this sort of fiction from the 50's. After 50 pages, I realised this book is purely a self-absorbed exercise in convoluted and precocious sentence construction and grammar, something that only my high school English master could have enjoyed. There are hardly any nouns without adjectives or verbs without adverbs, and more clauses and subclauses to most sentences than I thought possible. The result is pages covered with the most excruciatingly pompous language I've ever read. Needless to say, I couldn't read much of it.

The characters! The ex-military intelligence man, now a senior church official, with the "jolly hockey sticks" wife, curiously confined to a wheelchair after polio contracted soon after their marriage. The cardboard cutout Deans, vicars, etc., could have leaped out of a Trollope novel. The token Australian, a young, arachnophobic, woman archictect, was so stereotyped, she only just stopped short of "throwing a shrimp on the barbie" (maybe she did, I gave up after 80 pages).

The dialogue! There is not one single person in this world who would ever utter the words put in these character's mouths. "'I'm afraid', she said, dropping her gaze, 'that I suffer a little from arachnophobia.'" As an Australian, I *know* she would have said 'I bloody HATE spiders!', and her gaze wouldn't have dropped an inch.

Do yourself a favour and read something (anything) else. This has only got one star because I couldn't save it with none.

An elderly friend recommended Carol Shields to me many years ago - I wish I'd listened earlier. This woman writes like I imagine angels sing.

While on their honeymoon trip to England with his wife Dorrie, Larry, a Canadian florist becomes inspired by the lush English hedges. During a visit Hampton Court Palace, Larry becomes totally besotted by mazes, and thus is born a life calling.

Besides being about mazes, this book is a maze. Each chapter jumps forward to a new point in Larry's life, but keeps twisting and turning and reflecting back on previous episodes; some that were life-shattering at the time, become mere asides when viewed from a different angle. As Larry meanders through life, two marriages, fatherhood, career changes, etc., he remains beset by same inadequacies, failings and fears of his youth. His life just seems to happen around him. But since this book is a maze, we know it must have a goal, and when achieved, it is surprising, poignant and triumphant. Then you realise he still has to get out of the maze.

I feel I might have some chance of understanding men better having read this book. Carol Shields has obviously studied men intensely to come up with his incredibly believable character, an ordinary man. All of the characters are well constructed and the dialogue is real. The words melt together into flawless storytelling; a gem of a book.