Hannah Morgan-Lewis

I was not sure how to review this. I think if you ignore its literary pretensions, the over-use of italics, the rambling, cheesy ending, and the poor editing and proofreading, what you are left with is quite an entertaining (if bonkers) novel. Prepare yourself for a rollercoaster ride where you will question your grip on reality as you encounter documentary evidence relating to the mysterious film director Cordova and his family. It can be eerie at times and I thought the way that Pessl blended fiction with reality was quite clever at times. I also liked the use of the mocked-up webpages and other documentary evidence. It definitely could have done with more work on the writing, however.

Enjoyable, but at the same time I found this quite a frustrating read. Juliet can at times be a bit annoying, this is not helped by the first person narrative. Just when the plot gets interesting, you get more nonsense about how sexy she finds the three men she can't decide between and how she can't decide whether to be a chef or not. The mushroom sub plot goes nowhere, it looks like it was inserted to provide a bit of spice but never really resolved in a satisfying way, it was if the author changed her mind about where she wanted it to go. It also doesn't feel that evocative for a book about food, stately homes and Christmas. The author obviously knows a great deal about cooking, but I found her descriptions fell short. I enjoyed the parts about the family and the below stairs staff though.

A fitting end to a brilliant series.

A whimsical, speculative look at the possible life of a woman using artefacts gathered from a box that the author owned. I really enjoyed this book, although the magical realism elements may not to be everybody's taste and it requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief regarding what is fact and what is fiction. I thought it was done cleverly, however.

I really enjoyed the first two books, but I found this one a bit hard going at times. I think that I just wasn't sufficiently engaged with either the film crew plot or the best kept village competition plot. The film crew one in particular didn't really seem to go anywhere. I do like reading about the characters however, and I hope that I enjoy the next two books in the series.

It was okay, but I found the portrayal of the romances to be a little superficial and the end seemed to run out of steam, as if it was supposed to be a longer novel. Not sure if the events with the nemesis was supposed to be funny; they ended up being more mortifying than amusing. The author seems to be compared to Jilly Cooper a lot, I think I prefer Jilly's humour.

I don't think this book quite knew what genre it was trying to be, ghost story, mystery, romance or comedy. Because it was straddling genres, I found the plot a little muddled at times, particularly with the split narrative. Nevertheless, it was quite fun to read.

I thought this was really well written but I found the mystery, the whole purpose of the book, to be quite weak. The book tried to build it up but without this crucial element of plot I found it quite hard going at times.

Wonderful descriptions of food and interesting facts but I found it quite confusing at times; the narrator seems to meander through the character's lives more focussed on the food than the plot. I got the sense that although the book was well researched, there didn't seem to be a theme to ‘hang' it on. I thought it was going to be Escoffier's relationships with women, but somehow neither romance seemed to go anywhere.

Clever and stylish but not a book I enjoyed reading and I felt that it went over my head. Part of me wishes I could be more positive as there were parts of the book I admired, but then I found myself rushing to the end and there were parts of the writing style I found quite off-putting at times. Maybe not the best introduction to this author's work for me.

Really enjoyed this, I loved the delicately drawn characters and the way that Trollope depicted Harding's ethical dilemma.

I didn't enjoy this and I'm not sure what actually happened in this book. Too much dialogue. Perhaps it was my state of mind reading it, but I don't think I'll try and go back. I'm just glad to have finished it.

Found this really hard to finish & it became a battle of wills between me and the book. The writing is okay but there seemed to be large chunks where not a lot of plot occurred. Also, I get that Mary was not necessarily a likeable character, nor was Alfred, but I never really felt any sort of connection or sympathy for them.

This was the first time I'd read this despite having read the first 6 Anne books as a teenager. Not my favourite. I felt like I should have been more emotionally invested because of the subject, but I found it hard going (can't believe it took me so long to finish it). To be honest it was quite dull and repetitive in parts. Rilla is okay but I didn't really find her a strong enough character to carry a book and the rest seemed to be mainly Susan Baker. Don't think I will be returning to the last two books again, although I'll probably make a future pilgrimage to the first six.

A reprint of ‘The Bad Miss Bennett' under a different title. This is a pretty poor spin-off that doesn't even attempt to write in a Regency style or even give a sense of atmosphere, despite all the travelling to different countries in Europe. The plot is meandering and ludicrous and the only thing the writer has really used from Austen is the names. I wasn't that keen on the first person perspective either. If you are willing not to be put off by this, what you have is a reasonably entertaining if forgettable book. I didn't completely hate it but I won't remember it either.

Admittedly, I haven't read that much Russian literature before. I think I enjoyed the first part of the story more, and Anna's parts more than the Levin parts. Some of the Levin parts were a bit too slow going to the point that I got frustrated.
Okay, so the characters didn't appear that sympathetic at times, particularly Anna, but the book does give an insight into the Russian society of the time and in particular the hypocritical way Anna is treated - forced not only to live in as kind of semi-married stasis but also to be treated like a social pariah for loving Vronsky (who it seems is unaffected socially by the match).
Not an easy read and it's taken me months to finish it, but I'm glad I read it.

I thought this book started out promisingly but ran out of steam in the second half. The mystery itself was a little bit muddled and I was not a fan of the plot twist at the end. I think I can see what he was trying to achieve but the whole idea of these post-modern Victorian novels is that they should be at least as readable as the original novels they are modelled on, that in some way the writers are attempting to improve on them and use modern writing methods to make the genre fresh. I didn't think that this book managed that.

I didn't find it as evocative as it would like to think, although it was an okay read. Glad for the twist at the end; I would've been quite annoyed if it had gone where I thought it was going! I think I would've liked more about the couple's relationship and the effect of the crash, but the description of the fire and way she incorporated it into the story was quite good.

It was okay, but it didn't thrill me. I think I found the 1st person narrative a bit annoying, it dragged in places and it wasn't nearly as funny as it thought it was. A nice easy summer read but quite forgettable.

I think calling this book a “Downton Abbey-style saga” does it a bit of a disservice. Whilst I like Downton this is a far more subtle novel. Whilst I didn't find it a page turner, I did feel a sense of satisfaction having read it and it reminded me a little of “Atonement”. Good characters, I liked the writing style and it seemed well researched, as you would expect from a historian.

It gets two stars because I didn't hate it all the way through, I just didn't “get” it. I didn't find the humour that funny, it wasn't absurd enough to be absurd or sharp enough to be that satirical. I found the plot a bit of a muddle and the pacing a bit patchy. It dragged at times. And I hated the ending. I don't know if he was aiming for emotional resonance, but it felt like he ran out of steam and it was a bit of a cop-out. The protagonist didn't really redeem himself enough for it to work.
Otherwise, it's a gentle read and can be mildly amusing in places, it just didn't suit me.

I thought the narrative style was engaging and I liked the way the book showed the lives of the different women from both generations. I wasn't so keen on some of the contemporary characters who came across as being whiny and overpriviliged. Maybe I'd have more sympathy if I was a mother though.

Not too bad, glad I read it but it's not really one I would re-read. It's a highly interesting premis for a novel, but I did find it confusing in parts and somehow didn't find Osgood that three dimensional. Not sure if that was because he was a real person, but I didn't find him that realistic. The background to Drood was good though.

I loved Millar's style of writing and the way that she re-told the story of the Trojan War, but I found Achilles' and Patroclus' relationship didn't ring quite true for me. Maybe a bit soppy, particularly towards the end.

So Lawrence is obsessed with female sexuality? So he uses quite lurid prose to describe how we should run off and find a penis to worship? I am not sure if I'm supposed to like him or revile him, all I know is I both enjoy his writing and find it frustrating at the same time, and wherever I become too frustrated I have to remind myself of what he was trying to achieve, a state whereby men and particularly women could be honest about their sexuality. Yvette, the heroine, may come across as being hopelessly naive and downright annoying at times, but I still enjoyed reading this and found it quite powerful in places. The ending was rather abrupt though, but I suppose that is to be expected from a novella.