Bruno Blog

It’s World cup year, and the summer vibe with the world cup is quite different. Giant screens in terraces, football all day long on TV, and millions of people waiting for the results with painted faces and flags flying loose on their backs.

Football brings up passion, there’s no denying it, and it is still one of the most beloved sports by children. They practice it during break time at school, during their free time and more than usual, where there are lots of kids there’s a ball nearby. That’s why Anaya has thought of a curious book for the youngest and for the oldest, a book to reveal all the secrets, the legends, the myths and history of this sport. EL ATLAS MUNDIAL DEL FÚTBOL, written by Gabriel García de Oro, and illustrated by Jacobo Fernández, tells us all about the scores, the higher scorers, the impossible records, the best coaches, the best trivia and lots of interesting facts from over 40 different teams that have made of football the most popular sport on earth.

Do you want to be the knows-it-all of football? Then rush to your nearest bookstore and surprise all your football follower friends while you enjoy supporting the team you are rooting for the victory of the FIFA World cup 2018.

I have to admit that the tickling you get when watching a horror film, just when you know something is about to happen that will force you to scream, is that little something that keeps you hooked to the screen. The same happens with a book, although it is somehow more difficult to create that atmosphere that images can give you, unless the writer is a master in the subject. Well, I am proud to say that Malenka Ramos is such a master. She proved it with her LO QUE HABITA DENTRO, which gave her the distinction of being the Spanish Stephen King, and now, with EL QUE SUSURRA she manages to have the reader under an avalanche of thrills from beginning to end. I assure you there were moments where I preferred reading the novel accompanied because I was too afraid to do so by myself as the tiniest noise startled me. I got into this novel like I have seldom experienced. Those who love this genre are going to love this, as long as they have a pillow nearby to make hold of it.

A little town, Point Spirit, with a sawmill, is going to experience a series of changes that will forever change their lives. A death at three o clock in the morning, an old hall clock that stops at that precise time at the Morelli sisters’ house. The night turns darker and Mrs Owens heard a knock on her door. The sheriff was looking at a light by the sawmill, he could not manage to sleep that night. And in a recently rented cabin, Jim Allen, the writer, slept like a baby, and that’s why he didn’t see the shadowy figure that went by his window. Penny had died precisely at three o’clock in the morning, when it all started.

I can’t tell you anything because I would spoil a great deal of the book, but you can deny that this tiny summary draws your attention into the novel. An addictive read for the summer that I am sure will have you holding your breath and eager to know more about this asturian writer that deserves a chance to grow bigger and expand her talents. There aren’t many women writers that focus on this genre in our country, and I think they deserve all our support, because it is not easy to make it in a generally masculine field. So, female readers and female publishers of the world, let’s come together and give the chance to a female writer who masters a thrill like nobody else and who will reach an immense audience if we push for her, starting now.

One of my all time favourite films is Ghost, I can’t say how many times I’ve watched it and I confess I know the dialogue by heart. To think that someone who’s passed away can stay among us, it gives me chills, but it works in the film, as well as it does in Ana Alonso’s new project, LUNA Y LOS INCORPÓREOS. In it, Luna, a thirteen year old girl, has a friend, Yago, who is dead and refuses to believe so.

Luna has a gift, although it is more of a problem for her, because she can see, hear, and talk to INCORPÓREOS, the wandering spirits of some deceased people. Sometimes they have been looking for eternal rest for decades or even centuries, but can’t get it. It’s not easy for them, and that’s why they are bad tempered creatures, upset with themselves and that put upon Luna their unrest and anger. At the same time, they stick around her and ask her for things. As of right now there are three books in the series, and I have loved the idea even if it’s not new, because Ana has managed to put that final touch, because the INCORPÓREOS are from different times, which allows us to travel to spectral cities and to know the culture, art, and the ways of living in different times of history.

Besides, an APP has been developed with mystery-chats that will reveal important aspects of the characters, videos of NoBody18 about many trivia and a didactic programming to accompany the reading. The digital world is the perfect complement for a series that is different, funny, and that gives an extra reward to teenagers who stick to their mobiles all thay long. This fusion is ideal for them and for teachers, because reading must be fun, and can also be interactive and make a hobby out of reading, and not an obligation.

Isn’t it interesting? Three books for the summer so that teenagers don’t just play videogames, but also read and get immersed in the chats and the amazing app, at the same time funny and didactic – without it leading to rejection.

I have assumed that there are things in life that have no explanation and that you simple have to know how to live with them. There are inexplicable things because I would never act in a particular manner and others would, and that create a kind of not-knowing-situation going on in us. There are inexplicable things because they are strange phenomena, or things that happen by chance, but I don’t believe in chance. The later have happened to me, though, and I think it is destiny trying to put you in front of what you need. However, I haven’t yet experienced any strange phenomena, I have only read about it because it’s something I like, and I have watched tv series and devoured several books about it.

This is not the kind of genre I mostly read, but every now and then you find a novel that manages to hook you in, and this is what happened with Jon Ander Crespo’s, OCHO VELAS, and I totally fell in love with the main character, a ghost buster. It’s a novel set in Pamplona, a city that I love, where an alarming manuscript alerting about the presence of ghosts in the city suddenly appears. This is how an the thrilling and sometimes humorous adventure begins, which is not easy to manage and yet it works perfectly fine. There are strange paranormal happenings around the city. A story some want to keep quite and in low profile until a series of deaths start to happen under very strange circumstances, which won’t be solved until many years later, when a detective and a special affairs division inspector will be forced to face inexplicable cases and look back into the past in order to understand what is, apparently, impossible to explain.

This is the debut of a talented author who publishes in a small, yet big, publishing house because he likes risks, because he just goes for it, because the editors looks into editing with a present-day idea. Even though the publishing world is full of strange phenomena, many of us know that work, constancy and doing things to the best of our abilities have a reward, and Adaliz knows how to get this done. Congratulations on the good work to the editors and the author, who clearly deserves this opportunity.

It’s the last day of the month and we are thrown into June, with a rather shaky spring in many aspects, and not just weather-wise. Also looking forward to summer and having that well-needed break. With every passing year I notice the need to calm down and relax, with my people by my side, go away from the noise, routines and the menacing clock. I think this clearly means that I am getting old and I honestly never thought that it would come to a point where I would need to click on the “Stop” button. However, it has come to that, and since life keeps surprising me, I really need to take things in a different way and know how to put things in the right place. Nothing is black and white, there are always lots of nuances.

Just like in Susana Rodríguez’s latest novel, TE VERÉ ESTA NOCHE, which puts the noir trilogy (published by Debolsillo) to an end. In it, Irene Ochoa, the main character, and her love interest, inspector Vázquez, investigate the death, under weird circumstances, of her husband. We know more about her and him in every novel, although the entries in the trilogy can be read independently, because the crimes and cases that the inspector and his team must solve are different in each book. In this last installment we have the disappearance of an entire family after a car crash, in which only the mother is found. We have no idea where the rest are and this is what will drive the investigation team. Moreover, inspector Vázquez will learn things he would have hoped to never know, an unexpected surprise, maybe shut out by his deepest desires, to mark the end of this magnificent trilogy that has sold more than 10.000 copies between the first two books. The third, just published, has already been reprinted because Susana already has a well-deserved fan base, and because she is a formidable writer in the genre, and can still be discovered by many.

Her stories grab you from beginning to end in a way it’s impossible to express. Like a magnetic force dragging you into the story that will only leave you wanting for more. A great reading experience for the summer is knocking at our door, and I can assure that you won’t have enough with just one.