Kieran Delaney Male, 25, In a relationship. York, United Kingdom

Live Fire is an odd book - it's a gangster thriller, about ordinary decent criminals, sure. But it doesn't cast them as superstars, there's no backhanded glorification, instead there is a subtle exploration of the boundaries of morals and ethics, within crime and outside in the 'civilian' world. More important to the narrative is the central character Dan Shepherd who has to enter this world and cope with actually quite liking the people he is trying to catch.

Woven into this is a concurrent story line that could do with a bit more attention, but which hurtles along to a car crash finish in any case, that helps cement this clash of old school 'decent' criminal morals and outright thuggery.

All in all it ticks all the right boxes to keep most crime fans happy but with added brain.

I was leant this novel by a friend - and was ultimately disappointed. It came recommended as 'the best book he'd ever read'. He can't of read many books. It's a bit turgid.

Most books start well, dip in the middle and pound home to a strong finish. This is the exact opposite to those books. It opens with a sluggish start, gets a bit interesting in the middle with a curveball and drops to a flaccid finish with a few apologies and an 'I'm sorry, this usually doesn't happen to me'.

All I can say is there are far better books available. I guess it's definitely not the worst book I've read though.

It took me ages to get around to reading this book. Put simply it's a romance between two people, one who happens to travel backwards and forwards in time - Henry meets Claire when he is 36 and she is 6. They marry when she is 22 and he is 30.

I wasn't sure about reading a book labelled wonky and sexy, which is why it sat on the shelf for years.

However - aside from Henry's wonky chronology and the utterly believable romance between the two characters (including the good times and the bad) this book is an intelligent and exciting read and is in no way just another romance. It's a love story for anybody who wants to be challenged by both the bliss and the horror that a relationship can bring.

Excellent.

This book often doesn't know if it's a biography, moral compass or historical text. Conflicting sources are often quoted side by side leaving you to make your own mind up and factor your own version of events whilst the story veers from Johnny to the wider political spectrum - via petty arguments and rumours of security forces corruption. In an attempt to explain the impact of Adairs decisions or the triggers that led to them, the story flitters back and forth in time which just leaves you confused and flicking back a few chapters to see if that guy with the gun was the same guy as in the last chapter or not.

The whole thing ends up as a bit of a mess - not to mention the fact that the two authors writing styles are clearly left separated and intertwined which is jarring.

It's a shame, because the story itself is an interesting one, and given a bit of polish and an editor the book would have been much more powerful.

There isn't much to say about this book other than it's excellent. A brilliant story, brilliant writing and an engaging ensemble of characters, this is thriller writing at it's best.

If you are after a tightly written harrowing read that ticks all the positives and deftly swerves past any negatives you could do worse than read this novel - I intend on going back and reading the Jack Caffrey novels before this, but I didn't feel once that I had missed out by picking up midway through the series - the story is so well written and the characters are so well presented you are immediately cast headlong into a fucked up world populated by fucked up people.

Beyond Black is odd. Its very bleak, and at times depressingly dark and nasty. But it's not the ghosts that plague Al in her dreams and every waking minute that provide the shocks - it's middle England and human nature. A wide range of colourful characters, both dead and alive, weave in and out of a story that manages to pull together everything that makes us human - forgiveness, happiness, humour, lust, greed and revenge.

At times its difficult to know what's real and whats not... which is where the book both excels and falls down. There were a few occasions that broke the hypnotic nature of the book. I found myself struggling to comprehend quite what was going on and it meant I had to pull out of the gloriously constructed world and go back and reread parts - however, by keeping you a little unsteadily on your toes the book does manage to throw you around.

I enjoyed Beyond Black for all the right reasons - it's original (not often do the ghosts in a ghost story get upstaged by the 2.4 children family next door who just happen to be obsessed with the neighbourhood watch and the weather) its sharp, witty and clever - and its very real. But sometimes there were just a few too many voices at once which slightly obscured the descriptive storytelling beneath.

You get a book, a book that releases a tumultuous torrent of words. That's what I thought. The book, it as these vague allusions. Are they plot points? Do it. It's not clear. Is something going on? Who knows. Probably. It was probably just a dream. AND THEN IN COME THE BADDIES (THEY ARE WEARING BLACK) AND THEY SHOOT EVERYONE.

And then as it ends, more allusions. It was him.

(PS - This book took me an age to get through. I had to be sat on a train for two hours alongside a sleeping flatulant fat man before I could muster the energy to sit through the finale. It was about as gripping as Gilette shaving foam. The entire book is written from the perspective of a friend on the phone overhearing a coded conversation between the friend of a wifes son who once knew this bloke who typed his emails backwards. You end up re-reading the same ridiculous conversations that don't really explain anything just to find out if the bloke who's name you don't know is actually going where you think he is because you've already given up as to why any of them are going anywhere.)

Rubbish / 10.

The editing (and as a result the dialogue) in this novel is atrocious. There is simply no need to repeat characters names in every spoken line in a novel - most people who read books are not idiots.

"Really Kieran?"
"Yes reader, I'm afraid its true - this novel is badly let down by the poor dialogue"
"But Kieran I think, and Kieran don't hate me for saying this, but maybe you are being unfairly picky Kieran?"
"No reader - I am not. The festering dialogue weighs down a good story like a stone anchor, oh and Reader? I really am not exaggerating!"

You get the idea.

And it really is a shame, because the book is ever so slightly too long as well - predictable twists can be excused if you read up to them as quickly as you guess them, but when you see a twist coming 20 pages away you just know that someone needed to be a bit more brutal with the delete key.

Combined, the dialogue and length help to ruin what is an otherwise enjoyable adventure/thriller. The characters are interesting and likable, against all odds, and Hauck appears to be a solid foundation for a series (9 more books signed up!) - if only Gross gets a decent editor on board.

The romantic twist is believable, the locations are well described, the storyline is wide reaching without over stretching and as mentioned the characters are well rounded and emotive - its just that clunking script they're acting.

Jack Henderson wrote a book, about one of the most iconic terrorist attacks in history, and bastardised it into fiction whilst shoe-horning liberal doses of paranoia and conspiracy into a tight plot and slightly obscured attack on American foreign policy. Probably not surprising then that no publisher would touch it, even in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech.

So Henderson self published it - on the internet. Long story short, the book was so phenomenally successful in its relatively tiny format that someone sat up and took notice - leading to the eventual publishing of the novel in actual paper and ink format.

And its a cracking book - split roughly into three (no not the start, middle and end smartass) the book takes place over weeks, and feels like it takes place in hours. The cover suggests its like "24 meets Tom Clancy" and whilst it maintains the pace and tension eponymous of 24 there are no stand Clancy plot devices here - the novel lurches unpredictably from start to finish.

A book that's easy to pick up and impossible to put down, Maximum Impact is a great book and better than 90% of the paperbacks in the bestseller charts that didn't need to struggle anywhere near as much to get published.

I was utterly taken by Altered Carbon, Morgans first Takeshi Kovacs book - his second, Broken Angels, however was not great and felt like both the character and his writer were treading water. Woken Furies is a return to form, though not necessarily in the style of the original. Its still hard and fast, descriptive and intelligent but gone is the hard boiled detective noir to be replaced by grim action thriller that is positively epic in scale. An adventure that rolls from side to side of an alien planet dealing with emotional turmoil and the powers of guilt and revenge, this book is surprisingly emotive and you see through the facade of Kovacs at times to the very human character at his core. Of course its layered underneath wise cracks, violence and cool headed thinking from Kovacs but you really do get a sense that the characters are products of their environment, a living breathing hell of an alien planet ravaged by settlement wars. Harlans World is obviously the starting point for the Kovacs story and rather cleverly Morgan has him return in order to deal with his personal issues, whilst knowingly nodding to the previous stories and their effects upon the character.

Its a shame because if this was the second novel in the series, the run would be amazing - as it is, the middle book lets the story arc sag slightly. Don't let it put you off though, avoid Broken Angels completely if you like - this book is outstanding and it would be a shame to miss it. The different styles on show here demonstrate the flexibility of Morgan and his deft characterisation means there is surely more in the pipeline for Kovacs.

I'll admit that when I picked this book up I had no idea that Joe Hill was the son of someone famous, and to be honest it matters not one jot. It makes no difference whatsoever and I feel that some reviews have unfairly cast a shadow over this novel because of the size of Hill's father's shoes.

This is one of the best books I've read this year. I'm aware that I tend to give books everything - if I like them I tend to really like them, but in this case this book really is great. Sure it has its flaws, but I don't think I've read a perfect debut. But neither, and this is the important bit, have I picked up a debut novel before and stayed awake all night to read it all in one go.

This book has a little too much fat in places which slightly stifled the sense of urgency but despite this the book is still well paced and you get the feeling that nothing is included by accident. Towards the end of the book all sorts of seemingly random facts and anecdotes are pulled together to not only paint a picture of a tormented man, but to help explain his behaviour and his fears.

A novel that is cunningly disguised as a ghost story, the pages deftly share the cycle of abuse from the abused's transformation to abuser and the fear of facing our own demons, until a climax that ticks all the boxes without seeming forced or rushed.