David Staniforth

This is David Staniforth's second excursion outside the realm of fantasy - and he's very good at this!

VOID

Amazon.com

My review - 

This is not your classic amnesia story. A man wakes in a car on a Sheffield street with no memory of who he is or how he got there. In the glove compartment there's a journal, supposedly written by him, Tom. The events it relates mean nothing to him but tell him that he disappears for about a week in January each year. It's almost a double amnesia - in his week out in January he has no memory of the rest of the year. According to the journal, the rest of the year he can't remember what happens in his blank week - or in his first twenty years of life.

This story is a new slant on memory-loss and we suspect some trauma has caused it. Tom is fearful that he will discover that he's a rapist or a murderer and is scared to find out. It's an intriguing page-turner – a mystery which we unfold with Tom. I was glued to this story. I first came to know the author’s work through his fantasy novels but he is proving more than capable of handling the psychological suspense/thriller categories too.

I received a pre-publication copy of this book for review purposes.

David Staniforth

This is a real departure from David Staniforth's usual genre of Fantasy.  It's dark, tense and there's a creeping sense of the sinister while the reader sides with an inept young man.

Imperfect Strangers

Amazon.com Imperfect Strangers

My review - 

Keith is a gauche and socially inept young man who works as a night security guard and is generally held in contempt by the rest of the company’s employees. He is attracted to Sally, a fellow worker there, but she isn’t interested in him and is in the process of falling out with her previously live-in man. Keith tries so hard, reading books on body-language to help him to empathise with others. His late mother’s influence on his upbringing is still strong. In hoping to attract Sally he is trying to rid himself of those memories.

This is an amazing story and it’s hard not to cheer Keith on. It’s written from both his and Sally’s points of view and we see gradually how their ideas on the progress of this relationship diverge. Its ending is extremely tense and exciting. This is a total change from the author’s previous genre of Fantasy and it proved that he is more than capable in a variety of genres.