I prefer the new design even though there are quite a few cod Victorian covers around at the moment. It’s fine but … the fuzziness wouldn’t grab me if I was browsing in a bookshop. It’s told in the first person and the speed of the narrative is heightened by this smart, sassy, possibly damaged young woman’s stream of observations and one-liners.Ĭover design moment: The old UK covers of this series all feature a rather cool clock spiral, looking rather like a trilobite, and a book-specific mock historical painting. All this frenetic activity teeters on the brink of excess, but I can forgive Jodi as she has created a splendid character, Madeleine Maxwell. This allows Jodi to take her pick of any historical episode and drop her characters straight into the heart of it her vivid imagining of the past adds to the fun and the story can lift itself up and put whenever it wants. The background to the series is the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research: an academic establishment full of historians who travel in pods to investigate major past events. And what a ride! Jodi sets her protagonist, Max, off at a tremendous lick, ricocheting from Victorian slums to c12th Canterbury to Ancient Nineveh taking in dodos and arch villainy at the same time. It didn’t matter the writing doesn’t take itself seriously and I just went along for the ride. Undeterred, I went right ahead and read A Symphony of Echoes. I’ve been wanting to read this series for a while and the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary‘s arrived before the first. Come and join us at over at Chelley Toy’s site. This is my fourteenth review in the British Books Challenge 2017. She has been a lecturer and a TV presenter before becoming a writer. This contrast is further highlighted by the fact that in her acknowledgements Syd explains she has tried to get funding for a witchcraft museum – and still hopes one day to achieve this dream and yet the novel’s by-line on the cover is “ The only way is witchcraft” – a reference to the popular British reality soap, “The Only way is Essex” which full of love triangles, fake tans and hair extensions. There’s a lovely 5 minute Youtube clip of Syd Moore explaining the 1980s prejudice, comparison between witches and Essex girls, and her revisioning of them both here.Ī thoroughly enjoyable holiday mystery and I am looking forward to the next in the Essex Witch Museum series. This isn’t a criticism but more of a comment on an interesting juxtaposition between the constant froth of Essex humour against the dark witchcraft subject matter. These details add depth and thoughtfulness to an otherwise lightweight read. The relaxed breezy style and numerous Essex jokes belie the amount of research that obviously went into the novel’s background. Syd’s deft writing establishes the protagonist, Rosie Strange, as the new owner of the run down Essex Witch Museum whilst smoothly setting up the working (and love/hate) relationship between her and the museum curator, Sam Stone. Restoration, the third, is hopefully out next year.Ī chase across England after the bones of Ursula Cadence, a C16th witch, before the ghost of her son does something extreme. Angela lives in Brisbane, Australia.Ĭover design moment: The illustration of a Kitsune (fox) assassin is by Rory Kee, who is name credited on the back and appears to work for Quercus quite a bit – though unfortunately I can’t find a website for her.Ĭorpse Light by Angela Slatter was published by Jo Fletcher Books, an imprint of Quercus, on 13th July 2017. This is the second in Angela’s Verity Fassbinder series. Vigil, the first Verity Fassbinder book, was her first solo novel. She is loud mouthed, full of heart and this time, she’s very, very pregnant.Īngela Slatter is an award-winning author of short story collections for which she has won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and five Aurealis Awards. When an insurance company gets troubled by an “Unusual Happenstance, Verity is called in and the threads of the situation unfurl to coil around her friends and her family, and ultimately Verity herself.Īngela writes with great style and economy. The story line is fast and furious with lots of fabulous characters and relationship twists but, most of all, I’ve waited all year to spend time with Verity again. Verity Fassbinder is half Weyrd and half norm – a status which makes her well placed to police the blurred lines between the normal and the shadowy in the city of Brisbane. … great fun urban fantasy with a kick-ass female lead …
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |