Illiterarty.com Book reviews and blogs by Bridget

If this was food, it would be a giant tub of fresh popcorn, covered in hot, molten butter, with an old-school choc top for dessert.

I keep my head down as I walk along, and it feels like I'm in a black and white movie, travelling lack-lustrely in the same direction as everyone else on the street as though we are a dull shoal of fish in blacks and greys.

In the starkness and wild of the Victorian coastal countryside, a seemingly straightforward murder is committed. Detective Joe Cashin, who is in recovery from a mentally and physically scarring encounter on the job, pushes through the veneer of simplicity, and is plunged into a dark, complex crime...

Sitting at the oak table, staring down at his spotted red tie with his knees pressed together and his hands slippery. There's muttering around the room, the whispering of chair wheels and the creaking of stiff joints, a synthesis of old men, money and expensive suits.

If this was about a pubescent boy instead of a pubescent girl, it would confirm everything a certain sort of person likes to pretend lurks primarily within the purview of the homosexual mindset. But it isn't, so deal with it, heteros.

I loosen my suspender and slide my device for devious journalists over my tweed skirt and onto my lap.

How do you know it's going to turn out exactly as you think it will down to the last painful ellipses? Probably the proud "international bestseller" label, partially covered by the "$2 Kmart" pricetag. Redeeming feature? It was purchased by someone else.

When I wake under a laughable cliche of starched white sheets for the same day in a row I realise my recovery is not complete by any stretch of the elastic nightgown although my operation is complete and a success.

A slow man, a dead man, and a baby - Blaze is a soft-pseudo noir novel with a little crime and a big personality, discarded then resurrected by Stephen King.

Imitation vanilla essence;
gun powder, thingumies and lint.

Neverwhere is a whimsical tale about a man called Richard, doors, rats, myths, and what really happens underneath London.

She wears a deadpan expression, maybe sultry, maybe smoky, maybe wistful, maybe bored.

If this was funnier, contained no sex whatsoever, five times less interesting to look at, but only slightly more suitable for children, it would be a The Charles Schulz Story, published 1971. (Have you READ early Peanuts? Good grief.)

Chemical extraction in a filthy rental, smoke blue walls and shattered cold windows blacked out by sooty towels.

An incredibly candid exploration of a few of the religious and cultural elements of that great and varied nation, India. Love it or hate it, there's just something about it...

The ocean heaves lethargically, restless and sad with unbearable tight tears.

If this was written by a middle-class douchebag with all the observational skill but zero percent of the humour, it would be any Ian Fleming book.

Run. Open the door, slam it shut, run.

Stephen King examines themes of predestination, fate, love and evil in his classic fifth novel, The Dead Zone.