Oh my goodness, I love Lauren St John's writing so much. I've been a huge fan since her White Giraffe series (**newsflash** there will be a new title in that series 'Operation Rhino' due out August 2015) , which was then followed by the brilliant Laura Marlin series, then the excellent One Dollar Horse series, and now there is this 'The Glory'. All I can say is that her writing is as superb as ever. I read this book in a day, it was so engrossing. Lauren has this excellent ability of describing places in such beautiful detail that you want to get straight on a plane to visit it. This happened after I'd read 'Rendezvous in Russia'. I'd always wanted to go to Russia, and after reading this I said to my daughter 'Right, we're off'. We visited St Petersburg and I was just so excited I didn't care that it rained the whole week, and I didn't care that I had to spend a week's wages to buy a ballet ticket - it was all worth it. It was beautiful.
So, now Colorado is my next port of call. I followed the trail of The Glory (a fictional month-long, 1200 mile horse and rider endurance race, with a $250,000 prize) in one of my guidebooks on the USA, and the places just sound amazing. I want to to go horseriding, I want to buy a cowboy hat, I want to go to that cafe in Boulder, I want to experience the spectacular scenery and surroundings, I want to camp out under the stars (without the rattlesnakes).
Thank you Lauren for enriching my literary and travelling life!
Robin Stevens has become another of my favourite authors. This is only her second book (the first was book one in the Wells & Wong series 'Murder Most Unladylike') and it's even better than the first.
We follow Hazel and Daisy in the school holidays where they're staying at Daisy's house with her family to celebrate her birthday. However, everyone is acting very suspiciously and when one of the party falls dead after drinking a cup of tea, thoughts turn to murder and everyone is a suspect. Who better to investigate than the young detective duo Wells & Wong?
A delicious and delightful pageturner of a read. Unputdownable!
I've only read one of David Levithan's novels, and that was co-written with Rachel Cohn 'Dash and Lily's Book of Dares'. I just loved it. I could see why fans of John Green liked his style of writing, and of course vice-versa. Even though 'Marly's Ghost' has just been released over here, it was actually first published in 2005, early on in Levithan's writing career. It's an interesting one - I don't know whether I liked it or not. It's a reworking of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', but the reasons for the ghostly visits are not because Ben, the main character, (whose name we find out near the end is actually short for Ebenezer Scrooge) is a miser, but because he is finding it hard to move on in life after the death of his girlfriend, Marly. He withdraws himself from life, family and friends and cannot understand how life is continuing around him. The ghosts try to point out that he can keep the memory of Marly in his heart, but not like a ball and chain. He must let go, and carry on with his life.
I adore 'A Christmas Carol', and that could be the main reason why I wasn't sure about David's version. It's literally a copy, but slightly mixed up in places, so I knew what was coming and could guess the ending, which always spoils the reading of a book. David acknowledges at the end of his book that readers would either love it or hate it, but he hoped they would just go along with his version just for the pure enjoyment of it.
I'm sure true fans of Levithan will love it, but the jury's out for me.
