RICHARD E. ROCK

While soaking up this album it occurred to me exactly what it is about gothic metal that I love; it’s the decadence. Gothic metal at its best is seductive, lavish, sensuous and melodramatic, and River of Diamonds really is gothic metal at its best. This is the sixth studio album from multi-talented Norwegian vocalist extraordinaire…

The blurb: One year on from the day the shadows shifted – showing people their truest selves instead of just their shapes – best friends Teddy, Betsy and Effie plan to risk all and watch the winter sun rise over Copperwell, in defiance of the Shadow Order. But from their hidden vantage point the three…

The blarb: Whilst the town has always avoided the castle, it’s always seemed a peaceful, if eerie place. Now, since Nathaniel’s death, there seems to be a sense of…evil around it. Like Nathaniel’s death has opened a door and let the monsters out. The Curse of Ravenhall is an epistolary historic, gothic horror set in…

I have never been asked to give writing advice, and if there’s any justice in the world I never will be. But even if I was, my rampant imposter syndrome would prevent me from answering. Even with two novels published, I don’t feel even remotely qualified to hand out advice. That said, I have no…

The blurb: Kalb Ward slaughters dogs for the Colony, a closed, dystopian society where resources are tight, free speech is nonexistent, and those in power have eyes and ears everywhere. Ward desperately wants to quit his grisly job, but he knows he’ll be arrested, or worse, if he tries. In the Colony, a citizen’s future…

The blurb: It’s 31st October 2041 in England. On her twenty-fifth birthday, Essie Glass still grieves for her family, killed by a terrorist bomb when she was just sixteen. The signs of humanity and climate in decline are everywhere. Roads and communities crumble, floods and fires blight the landscape, and the sea reclaims the islands…

I don’t go to the theatre very often, but after seeing this production I feel I need to seriously buck my ideas up. Sorter, which is being staged at Swansea Grand Theatre’s Arts Wing, is the colliding story of two heroin addicts, one a dysfunctional young woman with her half-dead eyes always on the next…

The blurb: In 2055, humanity is on the brink of extinction after the misuse of an Intellectual Improvement drug. Doctor Louise Brimstone is facing mounting pressure from Professor Davidson. She must find a way of creating genetically matching babies for the wealthy clientele at Hartley Research Centre of Excellence. Louise wants to rectify the problem…

The Blurb: This is a love story, a family saga, and a social and political commentary on life in 20th century Wales, as seen through the eyes of one woman and her family, as we follow her journey from a pliable and naïve young girl to a confident and self-assured woman. The Review: It all…

Enys Men is the kind of film that one person will like and another will not for exactly the same reasons. Chronicling the disturbing experiences of a lone ‘volunteer’ who is monitoring the progress of some rare plants on a barren, wind-battered Cornish island, it’s discordant, fragmented, dreamlike and, most of all, unsettling. The island…