‘Northanger Abbey’ reimagined: could this stately family pile really be home to Twilight-style vampires? * Perhaps the least popular of Austen’s six completed novels, ‘Northanger Abbey’ is, nonetheless, a clever and entertaining parody of contemporary Gothic and Romantic novels. This makes seasoned crime writer Val McDermid an interesting choice to ‘update’ the novel, since she […]
Sometimes a book simply grips you. Despite the ample distractions provided by an 11 month old baby, a two year old toddler and a demanding annual project, I read this book from start to finish in under 48 hours. (The house may have descended into more chaos and mess than is usual, (yes, worryingly, it […]
‘Sense and Sensibility’ by Joanna Trollope. This is the first novel published as part of ‘The Austen Project‘ in which each of Jane Austen’s six major novels have been / will be re-worked by modern authors. You can read my thoughts on the idea itself here and here, but it would be fair to summarise […]
I wasn’t initially convinced by ‘The Book of Lost Things’. An adult fairytale? Yes, possibly, if kept fairly short and written by someone like Angela Carter. But 502 pages of adult fairytale? At least it wasn’t recommended by Richard and Judy, which most of the books I read for my fiction book group seem to […]
This book opens with so much praise from critics that it’s initially a challenge to find where the story begins. It is recommended by newspapers from Britain, Australia and New Zealand, magazies including ‘Saga’ and ‘Good Housekeeping’, and it was part of Richard and Judy’s Book Club, and it was shortlisted for the 2007 Man […]
Not all books repay rereading; this one does. With only two weeks to go now until the publication on July 14th of ‘To Set a Watchman’, it seems timely to reflect on Harper Lee’s previously published and much lauded novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Harder Lee’s 1960 novel is considered a masterpiece of American literature […]
Impulse book purchases. Sometimes they’re a great idea and you know almost from the first page that you’ll be buying the up the author’s entire back catalogue / future releases. Sometimes it’s better to read a few reviews first to get a better feel for the contents than the cover and blurb provide. ‘When we […]
Delays at the dentist? Traffic on the tube? It must be bonus reading time. Bonus reading time is what happens when you’re meant to be doing something else but there’s a hiccup and instead you get to read. This is why I always keep a book in my bag; you never know when you might […]
What if the past didn’t happen the way you thought it did? What if you could dig up the truth? Would you want to? Should you? What might you learn if you did? Such is the premise of Harlan Coben’s seventeenth crime novel, ‘The Woods’. What’s it about? Twenty years ago four teenagers enjoying summer […]
The Bees: accept, serve and obey. Or else. I enjoy reading dystopian fiction and I like bees, as long as they stay next to the flowers and away from my children, but I’ll be honest: I think it was the brilliant yellow cover that first attracted my attention. What’s it about? Flora 717 is a […]