Phil Leader

First world problems panic this morning. Signing into Goodreads for the first time in simply ages and I couldn't remember either the email address I used or the password. About 10 minutes of frantic Phil before I managed to get in

Phil Leader's review of Wanna Get Lucky? (Lucky O'Toole, #1) 5/5: Lucky O'Toole is head of Customer Relations at the splendidly over-the-top Babylon Hotel and Casino complex in Las Vegas. That means she spends all of her time dealing with the gamblers, drunks a...

5 star #bookreview repost
Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"A sassy, sharp and sexy story set in the seedy and seamy world of the Strip" #lasvegas

Phil Leader's review of The Taking (Afterlife, #2) 5/5: After her actions at the end of the first book in the series - Fledgling - the human-turned-angel Aurora has drawn the unwelcome attention of Separus, one of the most powerful of the demons. He c...

5 star #bookreview repost
The Taking by Katrina R Cope
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"These are not serene angels... these are kick-ass super heroes" #angels #demons #ya #thriller

Phil Leader's review of The Midas Code (Tyler Locke, #2) 5/5: The story of King Midas is a Greek Legend warning on the folly of greed where everything the king touches turns to gold - including his daughter. But at the heart of every story is a grain of tru...

5 star #bookreview repost
The Midas Code by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"Morrison doesn't let up for one second and he relishes pushing his heroes to the limit" #thriller

A photograph showing a hand holding three copies of the book Daddy Blackbird against a field of grass and daffodils

“Hope. It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.” | Tahereh Mafi

#DaddyBlackbird #BookSky #Hope 💛

News and other happenings

I’m on the radio! In Spain! have a listen on my website to a recent ‘Book Show’ interview where I shamelessly name drop Richard Osman and Stephen King. Just click below!

brianmrice.my.canva.site/news-and-oth...

Phil Leader's review of Each To Their Own 4/5: When teenager Kayleigh falls to her death her de facto stepfather Dan is convinced that there has been foul play and sets out to discover the events that led to her death and also to find out why...

4 star #bookreview repost
Each To Their Own by Diana J Febry
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"There are a number of twists to the plot, some quite sudden and shocking others more a realisation that things are not quite as they have seemed" #crimefiction #thriller

Phil Leader's review of The Ark (Tyler Locke, #1) 5/5: When engineer Tyler Locke rescues archaeologist Dilara Kenner from a helicopter crash he doesn't know whether to believe her story. She tells hum that a friend of hers was murdered by poison in f...

5 star #bookreview repost
The Ark by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"Positioned firmly in the adventure thriller mould this book is both a terrific example of the type and also refreshingly different" #thriller

Phil Leader's review of Half a War (Shattered Sea, #3) 4/5: This is the third book of the Shattered Sea trilogy and takes place a couple of years after the previous book, Half the World. The long forecast war between Gettland and the High King commences w...

4 star #bookreview repost
Half a War by Joe Abercrombie @joeabercrombie.com
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"It is never clear who is going live and who is going to die, and who is going to win and who is going to lose." #ya #fantasy #grimdark

#Starvinity #scifi #SciFiAdventure #scififantasy #spaceopera

Cover art shows a lethal, pale-scaled serpent-dragon or wyrm lurking in woodland. It looks straight at you as its forked tongue flickers between open, sharp-toothed jaws. Cover copy reads: THE GREEN MAN’S WAR For a few years now, the Green Man has sent Daniel Mackmain to resolve clashes between ordinary people and the supernatural world. Dan has found allies among folk from myth and met other humans who can see the uncanny. He has also made dangerous enemies. Someone has decided to put a stop to this interference once and for all. Dan and his friends are about to find themselves in the firing line.

Good news! The Green Man's War is a Kindle ebook deal for October. You can get fully caught up with Dan Mackmain's adventures before The Green Man's Holiday is published on 30th October.
www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Mans-W...

Cover of The Buffalo Hunter. Side profile of a buffalo, or black horn, on a beige background.

"The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" -Stephen Graham Jones. Truly creepy, well-done vampire tale that interweaves Indians, historical events, massacre, revenge, bent clergy, gluttony, and a cat lady. It works well and is easily on of the best books I've read this year.

#Booksky #194

I have to show off this again because Denis Kornev has done such a good job, but here are two of my favourite pieces of art going into the next Emaneska hardcover. Which is yours, angry dragons or giant wolves?

The Devils: 2025’s epic fantasy sensation – prepare for a wickedly dark and twisted adventure The Devils: 2025’s epic fantasy sensation – prepare for a wickedly dark and twisted adventure eBook : Abercrombie, Joe: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The Devils is ONE POUND on kindle right now. I'm cutting my own throat over here. www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-bigge...

Phil Leader's review of A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma, #3) 4/5: David Braddock has a happy home life and a successful business he enjoys running. When he runs into occasional acquaintance Jim Fosse in a bar, things begin to change. Jim makes him a surprising ...

4 star #bookreview repost
A Poison Tree by @johndolanauthor.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"Despite the dark tone of the story Dolan's light touch keeps things moving along"

My book is out in one week

Big thanks to everyone for the kind words on Beyond The Mark! A lot of reviews mention it feels like D&D, definitely not what I set out for, but it's awesome to see people having fun with it in ways I didn't expect.

Guess that's just how all creative work goes!

#dnd #fantasy #rpg

Phil Leader's review of Half the World (Shattered Sea, #2) 5/5: Father Yarvi has a problem. He is minister for Gettland but the High King is determined to engineer a war to remove Gettland from the map. Yarvi needs allies but with half the world swearing alle...

5 star #bookreview repost
Half the World by @joeabercrombie.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"Abercrombie really does have a magic touch in providing characters that do not fit into the usual rough and tough warrior mould" #fantasy #ya

Phil Leader's review of The Loch Ness Legacy (Tyler Locke, #4) 5/5: When Tyler Locke foils an attack on a summit of Middle Eastern leaders at the Eiffel Tower he suspects there is more going on than meets the eye. He is soon proved correct as delegates at the sum...

5 star #bookreview repost
The Loch Ness Legacy by @boydmorrisonwriter.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"The plot cracks along as Locke and his team uncover the secrets one at a time" #thriller

Phil Leader's review of The Hole Opportunity - Bronze Winner for Adult Fiction, Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2013 4/5: Colin Griggs is a farmer who tires of all the red tape and paperwork involved with traditional farming and decides to embark on a new venture - hole farming. Colin's lack of practicality is more ...

4 star #bookreview repost
The Hole Opportunity by James Minter
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"This book is a good and well thought out farce in the mould of Tom Sharpe" #humour #humor

I've been slower than I should have been reading this but you can't beat the Merriman Chronicles for historical high seas action

Thank you #Canada

#bestseller #newrelease

Phil Leader's review of The Great Zoo of China 5/5: The Chinese government have been working for years to create the ultimate tourist attraction, a very special zoo stocking with only one kind of animal - dragons. Long considered a myth the Chines...

5 star #bookreview repost
The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"This was written to entertain and thrill and it does that with ease" #thriller

Phil Leader's review of Jim Fosse's Expense Claim 5/5: I had no concept of what to expect from this (very) short story but that made it all the more fun. Told in a series of email exchanges, a letter and a newspaper report, things start innocuously e...

5 star #bookreview repost
Jim Fosse's Expense Claim by @johndolanauthor.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"Once I'd read this book I had to let others at work read it. Terrific." #humour #humor #shortstory

Phil Leader's review of Find My Brother (John McBride #3) 4/5: This is the third novel Chilcott has written featuring SAS soldier turned watercolour artist John McBride. In this he sees a woman looking distressed in a pub when he is out painting. She tells h...

4 star #bookreview repost
Find My Brother by David Chilcott
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"The story moves at a good pace - Chilcott writes like an author on a mission with spare and clean writing that still conveys everything it needs to" #thriller

This is going to be a big week for Bluemoose.

I'm going to use the 'J' word.

What a journey in the last 20 years.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by @ronanhession.bsky.social

From Dublin via Hebden Bridge, Hollywood to your BBC screens!

Magic.

@booksaremybag.bsky.social
@foylesforbooks.bsky.social

This collects almost every short I ever wrote except:
- Shorts set in the SotA universe (collected in the Tales of the Apt books)
- Most of the 2013 Feast and Famine collection (2 reprinted here)
- Recent shorts in the Tyrant Philosophers universe.

Phil Leader's review of Fledgling (Afterlife, #1) 5/5: With the increasing population and growing evils of the world, the guardian angels are struggling to keep up and have started to recruit human souls to be angels. Those that meet the criteria are...

5 star #bookreview repost
Fledgling by Katrina Cope
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
"They don't fight evil with a kind word and good deeds, these angels are trained in martial arts and are very much not afraid to use it." #ya #thriller

New free and discounted books today including Shane and the Hitwoman; scifi, romance, historical fiction, audio & more #freebooks #amreading #sciencefiction #BookBuzzr #ebooks #RomanceReaders #romancebooks #HistoricalFiction #thrillerbooks www.bobmayer.com/free-books-u...

Check out The Cambridge Murder Mysteries at charlotking.com (all photos my own)