Item: The Stranger Times
Rating: 5.00
Author: niamh

by C.K.McDonnell

'Wonderfully dark, extremely funny' proclaimed ADAM KAY, author of the No.1 bestselling This is Going to Hurt
'A filmic romp with great characters, a jet-propelled plot, and a winning premise' said the GUARDIAN
JASON MANFORD thinks it's 'Hilarious. You'll never look at Manchester the same way again.'
The Chronicles of St Mary's series author JODI TAYLOR declared 'I loved this . . . great premise - great story - great characters . . . hugely enjoyable.'
And THE TIMES called it 'ripping entertainment from start to finish.'

There are dark forces at work in our world (and in Manchester in particular), so thank God The Stranger Times is on hand to report them . . .

A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable.

At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.

When tragedy strikes in her first week on the job The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious investigating. What they discover leads to a shocking realisation: some of the stories they'd previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker forces than they could ever have imagined.

The Stranger Times is the first novel from C.K. McDonnell, the pen name of Caimh McDonnell. It combines his distinctive dark wit with his love of the weird and wonderful to deliver a joyous celebration of how truth really can be stranger than fiction.
Readers love The Stranger Times:
***** 'A delight from start to finish - laugh out loud funny yet with plenty of thrills.'
***** 'Full of wit and humour, and knows how to keep the reader hooked.'
***** 'You'll soon fall in love . . . fans of Pratchett, Gaiman, Aaronovich will be blown away.'

Thank you Netgalley and & Random House UK for an arc of this book :)

"The Stranger Times" by C.K. McDonnell is a wonderfully comedic urban fantasy.

If you're a fan of The River of London series, you'll love The Stranger Times.

Set in Manchester, we follow a group of hilarious main characters who are all slightly eccentric. The plot follows this group of people investigating "strange happenings" in their newspaper; "The Stranger Times".

We first meet MC, Hannah, who's having a bit of a rough go of it, between her cheating husband and removing herself from her high-flying life. By luck, she ends up with a job at The Stranger Times, a newspaper which deals in publishing outlandish stories.

From there on, things only get "stranger" with an American magician, suspicious deaths, the gang find themselves knee-deep in danger.

My only issue with the ARC was the missing newspaper articles, and some formatting issues rectified before publishing.

McDonnell's writing style is full of wit and humour, and knows how to keep the reader hooked.

5/5

The Stranger Times

by C.K.McDonnell

Reviewed by niamh on Aug 22, 2020

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