17.03.26
I enjoy Alice Bell's idiosyncratic and effervescent style of storytelling so much that I was uncharacteristically willing to pay more than 99p for the ebook. Yet the little asides and esoteric cultural references, and even the relentless Britishness of it all, quickly become confusing and, ultimately, irritating, to the extent that this reads like a parody of her previous books. Another novel that would have benefited from another edit and proofread before publishing.
19.02.26
This ice-skating drama had all the elements of a really good literary thriller but they don't add up to a place on the podium. Some parts were really interesting - the potential for abuse at the heart of competitive sport, in particular - but it needed a stronger edit to avoid a forgettable performance.
09.01.26
Heyer is a dependable comfort read when I'm under the weather (I've been winged but not by a pistol) and this, as usual, featured vivid characters and gentle humour, but it's also a little dull (despite the smuggling subplot). Much of it hasn't aged well since the 1950s - marrying one's cousin and bullying a queer relation lands rather differently these days.
53%
05.01.26I knew I had to write a review for a book I'd finished yesterday but it took me a good ten seconds to remember what that book was. Which isn't a great sign. I really liked Shaffer's The Lost Story but this, while competently written, was somehow both emotionally detached and overly sentimental.
07.09.25
An unexceptional queer romance with rather annoying protagonists who need to get over themselves. Never leaving town and/or taking 40 years to notice your privilege don't gain my empathy. I did like how they were a bit older than typical romantic leads, and that nearly everyone was LGBTQ+.
14.07.25
This was a weird mix of genres, starting off as a family drama and abruptly changing to a police procedural halfway through. While the focus on family relationships, and the lasting effects of trauma, was refreshingly unusual for a murder mystery, it was still a lumpy and ultimately unsatisfying read.
53%
16.05.25I enjoyed the first in this series but this third book feels much more off the production line. Maslen takes pains to make the main detective realistically ordinary, but that only draws attention to the unrealistically evil villains (and there are several) without bothering to build any emotional engagement. The murderer here was obvious from the start, so it seemed like a lot of faffing went on before they were finally taken down.
27.03.25
This has glowing reviews but it was just another muddled fantasy murder mystery. The excessive worldbuilding overshadowed - to the extent of distracting from - the plot, so that when the denouement finally came it wasn't a revelation so much as a reinforcement of what had already been made clear. None of the characters were convincing or interesting and it wasn't particularly well written. Despite all this, it was readable enough and gets a few points for trying to be inclusive.
This was good fun. If it had been anywhere near an editor, it might also have been a good book.
04.03.24
On the one hand, this was astonishingly well written, each sentence carefully crafted for the perfect balance of poetry and rhythm. That's what most of my points are for. On the other hand, it was astonishingly badly paced - even the action sequences were interminable and ultimately pointless. Clocking up nearly 700 pages, it was so boring and humour-free that I had to force myself to get past the confusing plot, two-dimensional characters, British people speaking like Americans (again!) and clichéd worldbuilding that's been done many times before.
53%
File under 'quirky police procedural' with another of the traumatised, probably neurodiverse (ADHD?) protagonists that seem popular these days. It was diverting as far as it went, but all extremely unlikely - OK, so it was a work of fiction, but the world- and character-building wasn't strong enough for me to completely suspend my disbelief.
53%
Not the best Heyer, but not terrible - how could it be, with its typically vivid characters and seamless worldbuilding (although the slang was overdone to the point of incomprehension)?
02.06.22
I was really looking forward to reading this but it turned out to be a struggle to finish. Why should I care about these rich, entitled people with their everyday problems? As well as the trend to set stories in the past just because people don't have cellphones, there seems to be a whole new genre about the relationship dynamics among four or more adult siblings, as if those of us from smaller families should be envious. Meh.
24.11.21
Oh, the curse of the sequel. This confused mess wasn't a patch on the first book in the series - sense and logic were forgotten, which is rather ironic for a book about solving puzzles. And the two love interests were so interchangeable that the whole romance angle seemed pointless. I don't think I'll bother with any more - although I might watch the upcoming TV adaptation!
15.05.21
Nice cover (though that's irrelevant on a Kindle) and interesting insight into Dutch history, but a rather tedious story with a stilted translation that did it no favours.
