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Review – The Lion Tamer who Lost by Louise Beech Be careful what you wish for it might just come true, is definitely the moral of this lovely, engaging romantic and heartbreaking read. Ben has always wished he could work with lions, whilst Andrews wishes are more complex, so he keeps his written on post-it notes and concealed inside his Wish Box. When these two meet it feels like fate could have thrown them together and this book is certainly a series of bizarre and pretty improbable coincidences. When you read a book that breaks a piece of your heart and you turn to the back and discover your own name in the mentions and thankyous … perhaps that’s just another of those bizarre coincidences, for not only did that happen to me in my proof copy of this book, which eventually found its way to me via a long and circuitous route (and I was so thrilled to be mentioned I yipped out loud on the bus) but a similar thing also happens in the book to one of the characters. The book alternates in p...

My Review of Goldsmith Jones by Sam Taylor-Pye Goldsmith Jones - It's like Oliver Twist with sodomy! Set in the wild west, in the gold rush era, the eponymous character is a teenage rent boy and he is a damn' fool! He just never learns from his mistakes and he gets himself into many risky situations he could so easily avoid, yet lands himself in scalding water, again and again. I'm not really sure why I found this book so engaging, but I rolled with it and really rather enjoyed it. It's certainly different and darkly exciting. Goldsmith Jones "My name's not Nancy or Boy" arrives, with his long blond hair tucked beneath a greasy cap, in San Francisco in the mid 19th century to find it a lawless and poverty ridden place. Orphaned and soon on the run from the law, he begins a life of male prostitution to earn himself a roof over his head and a crust and soon falls in with a succession of unsavoury characters, who in the main, treat him badly, apart from the n...