Moving On

Exactly five years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, I submitted my first book reviews to Chase Magazine. I'd toiled for ridiculously many hours over them, I always over-prep when I'm nervous, my way of coping. Thankfully, the reviews were accepted and three editors and 30 bi-monthly issues later, my final two page spread has just been published. I've only glanced at it. I don’t want to wallow but feel quite sad about the situation - a bit like your child leaving home, I imagine, you know it's going to happen, you're excited for them but still your heart breaks a little.

Simply, life got too busy and something had to give. That's a good thing, I know. I'd hate to be bored. Besides, it's somebody else's turn now. Someone who'll read different books to me and see different things in them.

Chase introduced me to books I'd never have entertained, particularly biographies and other non-fiction, and gave me the excuse to continue reading 'unputdownable' books whilst stirring a sauce, ironing (you need a recipe book stand for this – or a Kindle), on the exercise bike, walking home, when-I-should-have-been-doing-proper-work. I have yet to try reading a book whilst running - those of you who know my accident prone self, will be relieved to hear this - but I have discovered Audible books for the gym.

I'm certainly not planning on doing any less reading, but I admit to relishing the chance to choose titles forced to be neglected at the bottom of my To Be Read pile because they were too similar in genre to a book I'd recently reviewed.  

Meanwhile, to mark the end of this era, I thought I'd look back through every book review spread and come up with my Top Ten of Chase reads over the past five years. How hard could it be?

Very, very hard.

I've reviewed 81 books and the best I can manage is a top 18. And that took me two days of soul searching. I feel that if I gave it any more thought I'd change my mind again and for that reason, I'm also going to post the remaining titles in their own, 'Highly Recommended List'. I only ever review books I love and thus it seems wrong to leave any out.

  

I'm keen to know how many of these you've read and what would be on your own top ten of the last five years. Please do share with us!

Meanwhile, thank you to Joe Cawthorn and all the team at Chase. They are a wonderfully kind and talented group of people to work with and I've had a ball :D

My Top 18

1.       Defending Jacob by William Landay, published by Orion Books in 2012.
Did he, didn't he? And a brilliant twist at the end.

2.       Flying Under Bridges by Sandi Toksvig, published by Sphere in 2001.
Wonderful dark humour – just why is this sassy woman narrating from prison?

3.       Perfect by Rachel Joyce, Published by Doubleday in 2013.
Great characters, brilliant observation, pithy narration.

4.       The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood, published by Headline Review in 2016.
Massive feel-good factor from wonderfully quirky characters.

5.       A Song For Issy Bradley by Carys Bray, published by Hutchinson in 2014.
Wonderful characterisation, a sometimes humorous, enormously fascinating tear jerker.

6.       We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, published by Serpent's Tail in 2014.
So clever and I love the way Fowler tells a story.

7.       When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman, published by Headline Review in 2011.
One about rocky rides, growing up and older, and the power of love and relationships.

8.       The Devil’s Music by Jane Rusbridge, published by Bloomsbury in 2010.
Beautifully descriptive writing of characters dealing with different recollections of childhood.

9.       Crossing The Line by Christian Plowman, Published by Mainstream Publishing Company in 2013.
A superbly written auto-biographical account of undercover officer, Plowman's, torrid working life.

10.   The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson, published by Sceptre in 2014.
Does a transplanted heart bring a soul with it? Great question, great fiction narrated by three very different characters.

11.   Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown, published by Myriad Editions in 2009.
Life with an alcoholic mother told through the delicious voice of adorable (and humorous) 13 year old Jake.

12.   The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke, published by Piatkus in 2012.
Unlike anything I'd normally read and had me guessing right to the end.

13.   The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2013.
Couldn't put this down. What is the secret in the envelope: 'For my wife' and how on earth can this be resolved?

14.   The Things We Never Said, published by Simon & Schuster UK in 2013.
Hooked from the off – why on earth is Maggie in a 1960's mental asylum?

15.   The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue, published by Picador in 2012.
An unusual step into historical fiction for me, but with contemporary narration. Fascinating story based on truth.

16.   The Woman Before Me by Ruth Dugdall, published by Legend Press in 2010.
A psychological drama based on love and loss. Characters I still remember today.

17.   The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, published by The Borough Press in 2014.
Principally a book for teens but I devoured it. How Matthew, who suffers with schizophrenia, deals with his brother's death. Another emotional, humorous, life-affirming tale.

18.   Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, published by Black Swan in 2012.
Gripped by the story and impressed by the brilliantly complicated premise.

My Highly Recommended (in alphabetical order)

• A Barrow Boy's Cadenza (Kind Hearts and Martinets), by Pete Adams, published by Urbane Publications in June 2015.
• All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, published by Faber & Faber in 2015.
• Awful Auntie by David Walliams, published by Harper Collins Children's Books in 2016.
• Christmas Cupcakes by Annie Rigg, published by Ryland Peters & Small in 2011.
• Christmas Magic by Kate Shirazi, published by Pavilion Books in 2012.
• Christmas with Gordon by Gordon Ramsay, published by Quadrille Publishing Ltd. in 2011.
• Close of Play by PJ Whiteley, published by Urbane Publications in April 2015.
• Cloud Riders by Nick Cook, published by Three Hares Publishing in 2014.
• Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton, published by Bantam Press in 2016.
• Dear Thing by Julie Cohen, published by Bantam Press in 2014.
• Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, published by Phoenix in 2014.
• Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, published by Penguin in 2014.
• Feel the Fear (Ruby Redfort, book four) by Lauren Child, published by Harper Collins children's Books in 2015.
• Flight by Isabel Ashdown, published by Myriad Editions in May 2015.
• Gorgeous Christmas by Annie Bell, published by Kyle Cathie Limited in 2009.
• How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury by Cressida Cowell, published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2015.
• Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell, published by Tinder Press in 2013.
• Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult, published by Hodder Paperbacks in July 2015.
• Little Gypsy by Roxy Freeman, published by Simon & Shuster UK in 2011.
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyles, Published by Penguin in 2012.
• Mrs Sinclair's Secret by Louise Walters, published by Hodder Paperbacks in 2014.
• On a Beam of Light, A Story by Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne, published by Chronicle in 2013 (children's literature).
• Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe, published by Viking in 2016 (Young Adult).
• Please, Mister Postman by Alan Johnson, published by Corgi in 2015.
• Rook by Jane Rusbridge, published by Bloomsbury Circus in 2012.
• Salvage The Bones by Jesmyn Ward, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2012.
• She is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick, published by Indigo in 2014 (Young Adult).
• Start With Your Sock Drawer by Vicky Silverthorn with Emma Cooling, published by Sphere in 2016.
• Starter for Ten by David Nicholls, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2004. 
• Stone Seeds by Jo Ely, published by Urbane Publications in 2016.
• Stranger Child by Rachel Abbott, published by Black Dot Publishing in 2015.
• Survivor by Tom Hoyle, published by Macmillan Children’s Books in 2015.
• Sweet home by Carys Bray, published by Windmill Books in 2016.
• The Brilliant & Forever by Kevin MacNeil, published by Polygon in 2016.
• The Children Act by Ian McEwan, published by Vintage in April 2015.
• The Fault in our Stars by John Green, published by Penguin in 2013 (Young Adult).
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, published by Abacus in 2014.
• The Good Children by Roopa Farooki, published by Tinder Press in 2014.
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, Published by Bloomsbury in 2008.
• The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, published by Bloomsbury in September 2015.
• The Humans by Matt Haig, Published by Canongate Books in 2013.
• The Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To, by Dean Burnett, published by Guardian Faber Publishing in February 2016.
• The Kindness by Polly Samson, published by Bloomsbury paperbacks in 2016. 
• The Last of Us by Rob Ewing, published by the Borough Press in 2016.
• The Life and Loves of a He Devil: A Memoir by Graham Norton, published by Hodder Paperbacks in July 2015.
• The Little Book of Lunch, by Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing, published by Square Peg in 2014.
• The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir by Lesley Allen, published by Twenty7 in 2016.
• The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce, published by Transworld Books in 2014.
• The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins, published by Black Swan in 2012.
• The Man Who Forgot His Wife by John O’Farrell, published by Black Swan in 2012.
• The Runaway Smile by Nicholas Rossis, published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing in 2014.
• The Secrets We Left Behind by Susan Elliot Wright, published by Simon & Schuster in 2014.
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, published by Vintage Books in 2012.
• The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, by Joanna Cannon, published by The Borough Press in 2016.
• The Undertaking by Audrey Magee, published by Atlantic Books in 2014. .
• The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year by Sue Townsend, published by Penguin in 2012.
• The World According To Bob by James Bowen, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2014.
• Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food by Tom Kerridge, published by Absolute Press in 2013.
• Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes, published by Arrow Books Ltd. in 2014.
• Us by David Nicholls, published by Hodder Paperbacks in May 2015.
• Vigilante by Shelley Harris, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in January 2015.
• What On Earth Wallbook from The Big Bang to the Present Day, by Christopher Lloyd and Andy Forshaw, published by What On Earth Publishing Ltd., in 2015 (age 10+).

Late for Christmas

I have lost my Christmas Goddess crown. Not that I ever really had it. Truly. I've never sent a Christmas card before the 23^rd December and console myself that at least my card wouldn't be lost in the deluge of those arriving before Christmas from properly organised people. 3am on Christmas Day was when Mother Christmas finished wrapping presents when our children were small (Father Christmas there in spirit as he snoozed on the sofa) and the mince pies? Bought pastry and a jar of mincemeat have always served me well.

However, I have normally pretty much bought all the presents by the time that page on the calendar flips over onto crisp white snowy lanes and blue skies.

Not so this year. I have spent one day Christmas shopping with my Mum. It was great fun, but the amount of coffee stops was greater than the presents bought.

If you're joining me in your own Christmas tardiness (thank you for the solidarity), you might like to look at pages 40 and 41 of the gorgeous Christmas issue of Chase Magazine. Obviously, I wrote my pages a few weeks ago but fell in love with the books all over again when I saw my reviews in print. All suggestions for your Christmas shopping list, or even better, for your own present list, were hand-picked. I adored them all, even The Runaway Smile for small children (I always think that's a funny expression because you do get some very tall children who haven't yet seen the lofty heights of double figures, in fact, most children are taller than me by the time they reach their fifth birthday), which I wish had been written when my children were young.

Happy reading and enjoy the preparations! I'm off to buy some pastry and mincemeat.

 

Summer Suitcase of Six

If I can catch you before you go on your holidays, and if you’re having one of those trips where you read an entire year’s worth of books in two weeks (apologies to those who are guffawing at the prospect, with small children tugging at their ankles, the lasagne smelling just a little too cooked and the nit situation propelling itself to top evening’s priority because they’re starting to bounce) you might be interested in my Summer Suitcase of Six featured in the latest copy of Chase. 

You can view the full article here, pages 80/81 which features:

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh: perhaps not your typical beach read but the plight of the brain surgeon as much as that of his patients had me hooked.

Close of Play by PJ Whiteley: a roncom for men and cricket-loving women. Really? It works! Try it!

Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes: very creepy, great twist.

The Universe versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence: wry, touching sentimentality – my favourite kind of read.

Us by David Nicholls: very funny, brilliant observation which made me laugh out loud but it’s a little soppy, too.

Flight by Isabel Ashdown: another brilliant concept from Ashdown with page-turning characters and dilemmas.Chase have two signed copies of Flight up for grabs. Email Chase with your answer to the simple question here, before the closing date of 30 August, and you’re in with a chance.

Meanwhile, what should I be reading on my holiday - being at the pleading with the children to sit down with me, rather than the ankle hanging stage of parenthood -? Recommendations welcome, please!

Story-telling Charades

Asking me for a book recommendation is a commitment to a game of story-telling charades. I can give you un-abridged plot, swear my undying love for the characters and unbridled respect for the author but rarely can I give you their name or the title of the novel, without a little mental gymnastics first.

You just have to read, I say. Ok, it's a summer theme, same author as the one everyone's read with the blue cover, a desolate beach scene, silhouette of lovers holding hands. Don't recognise it? Oh, then put that on your list too. You'll cry, I warn, but it's uplifting as well.

The author? You'll know her, she's written loads! She must have been there, I add, sagely, must have had a close encounter with death because it was the little things she mentioned; the not washing the pillow cases. Edinburgh, you know?

After You'd Gone! You call. Yes! You've read it, I say, brilliant isn't it? I'll never forget it. So, what's the author's name? I can picture it on the cover in block white print. Same surname as a funny male writer. No, they're not married, not even related, shame. But she is married to a writer, another funny bloke, he's not O'Farrell though. He's William Sut…

O'Farrell! We scream in unison. Maggie O'Farrell. Phew! Instructions For A Heatwave, I say. Read that on the beach.

So, even though I'm never knowingly without a novel by my bed and another in my bag, putting together my list of recommended reading can be quite an undertaking. After much jumping up and down to my book shelves, family tree-esque diagrams and a convoluted path around Google, I've come up with my list of ten recommended stories old and new for the summer edition of Chase Magazine* – see page 54/55 - to spare you the charades. 

A new edition to Chase Magazine is Kids Corner on page 56 where a young writer has the chance to see their piece of short fiction in print. This issue's contributor is Georgia Buxton, age 13, (and no relation to me :D) with her quirky insight into Planet Zarg. If you know any keen writers under the age of 16, living in Sheffield, Rotherham or elsewhere in South Yorkshire, who'd like to see their writing in print, please encourage them to give it a go. 

All submissions should be emailed directly to the editor: joe.cawthorn@rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk 
as a Word attachment. Short stories, poetry and flash fiction up to 500 words in length all welcome and successful entrants will receive up to five free copies of the edition of Chase in which their article is printed. Good luck!

So, what have you been reading lately? Please share. Charades-type descriptions always acceptable...

*You may have to register with Chase the first time you click on the online edition but it's plain sailing after that.

Unrequited devotion to duty

I will admit to not having done a great deal of work of late. It's really difficult to fit it all in around the operations, recuperations, appointments – ahem - trips to coffee shops, trips online… so was delighted to receive my copies of the January / February edition of Chase Magazine and see that I could still occasionally manage to put a few words on paper.

I'm talking about Dear Thing by Julie Cohen and Crossing The Line by Christian Plowman in this edition. 

I only write about books which have blown me away and which I desperately want other people to read. And these two are no exception. The subject matter, surrogacy, is what drove me to Cohen's novel but once in, I found it was as much a story of unrequited love as making babies - an unexpected extra dimension which was joyously painful to read.

The second, Crossing The Line, is an auto-biographical view of life as an undercover detective. It's a theme which wouldn't normally jump out at me but once it had become clear that I'd read the entire first chapter in Waterstones, I felt compelled to buy it. Plowman's story is certainly gripping, powerful and, I admit, quite entertaining (even if I did feel a little voyeuristic in my fascination of the dirty underworld Plowman frequented) but it was also overtly sad and it was the human cost to Plowman which really had me fascinated. 

Please click here to pop over to Chase to read more (pages 50/51).

How's my new companion, cancer today? Well, I'm one step closer to booting the gate-crasher from the party. Last week I had my second official operation (third if you count the unexpected extra one to clear up the burst artery) and I'm back and fighting and just hoping we can finally get on with chemotherapy soon. It's funny the world you enter when you find out you have cancer, when you start wishing things like chemotherapy upon yourself. But the sooner we crack on with it, the sooner we can start talking about cancer in the past tense. Next post I'll tell you about the wig buying trip with my children. If you ask me nicely, I may even include photos.

Perfect, yes, absolutely

One of the books I chose to review for the Christmas issue of Chase Magazine was Perfect by Rachel Joyce. This is one of those stories which followed me around when I wasn't reading, nagging me until I picked it up again - and yet was almost too painful to read in parts. 

But Perfect is also funny and satirical and it made me sigh with relief sometimes too - a five star read for me all the way. 
Click Chase (pgs 52&53) to see the rest of the article including my views on the life-affirming, Humans by Matt Haig, as well as my stocking of must-have reads to end the year. 
Your turn! If I could ask for only one book for Christmas this year, what would you recommend?

A Walk down the Aisle

My short story, A Walk down the Aisle started life as a play on the Grease idea; Danny and Sandy having a bit of a make-over when it finally dawned upon them that they were meant to be together, whatever it took. Somehow, the plot ended up more Green Card then Grease albeit with my main character, Isaac, more of a Lancashire, Colin Farrell (swoon) in my eyes than a Gerard Depardieu (great accent though, G).

That’s story writing for you, when those keys start tapping, there’s no knowing what will appear on the page.

I wrote the story for a competition, pressed send, had a moment of euphoria that I’d hit the deadline, a couple of hours of doing some ‘proper’ work (ie slightly less enjoyable but slightly more profitable) and then the inevitable panic that the story was muddled and dull and how on earth did I have the audacity to send it?

It didn’t win the competition.

But, the words of the everso lovely and extremely amusing Katie Fjorde at the first York Festival of Writing forever ringing in my ears - you’d take your baby to hospital when it was sick but you’d give up on a story when you could make it better? - I did some more work on it and submitted it instead to Chase magazine.

And, I’m very happy to say, that’s where it appears this month. I’d love you to take a look, Click Chase – pages 92/3 (tip! Click 'last' and then flick back three pages) to read the whole story.

I hope it makes you smile :)

Instructions Enclosed

I’ve been away, only upstairs in my study but nonetheless, cocooned in another world, immersed in words - some my own, most those of others - on the Writers' Workshop Self-editing Course. It was sent by those writing gods in the sky via a well-placed tweet, neatly packaged up with my name all over it.

I *may* have mentioned my excitement about the fantastic feedback I had from an agent who read my latest manuscript and thus motivated me to freeze work on my second novel, Misguidance, in favour of an editing frenzy of Glass Houses. We need more of Etta, the agent told me. So, me, my notebook and a good dose of Scrivener set to work writing more scenes and extending existing ones.

What I didn’t tell you, was that I was doing it wrong. Not all of it, I’d like to point out, but Etta, my lead supporting role, poor love, she was wrong.

We don’t just want more of Etta, my insightful course tutors and writing buddies told me, we want more: more love, more heart-string-tugging, more despair. We need to be thrown deep inside, allowed to delve around, pull out her heart and examine what makes it beat. We want her on display, we need to see her, really see her.

It’s obvious now. But sometimes you have to be slapped around the face with the full force of the 380 sheets of A4 manuscript before you really see it. 

But while my brain was being washing-machined with questions, ideas and more questions, something had to give - and that was life. Together with the bills which weren’t paid and the sheets which weren’t changed, my books lay forlorn, untouched, forgotten. Instructions for a Heatwave lay open at page 58 like the sails on the Mary Celeste which is staggering for a book that, like every other of the wonderful, Maggie O’Farrell’s, in any other time of my life, would be adjudged un-put-down-able. And my towering TBR pile stood stock still, save for the odd tremor caused by the vibrations as my head beat itself against the desk on its way to my great light bulb of a moment that we’ll just call, ‘More Etta’.

Six weeks on and I have been flung out of the end of the course and told to get re-writing. Normal life is starting to seep back in. At the last count I was on page 101 of Instructions for a Heatwave and I have moved my tutor, Debi Alper’s Trading Tatiana to the top of my TBR pile; it’s the least you can do when an author changes your editing life. And as a reminder of how reading for me is one of the best and most simple of life’s many pleasures, my reviews of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows as well as The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue are available to read in Chase Magazine, page 16.

I particularly adored these books, the first a recommendation and the second, because, like many others, I was blown away by Room. It came as a surprise to me that The Sealed Letter bears little resemblance to Room, save for the distinctive author’s voice. Personally? I think it’s even better. 

And finally, while I was away I wasn't completely forgotten by the lovely and talented, Amanda Saint who nominated me for her 'Liebster' award. I was truly touched and will dedicate my next post to a response. As my commitment to Celebrating the Small Things has also been a little neglected of late, it seems fitting to dedicate my Liebster award to the Small Things – even if getting any award is slightly bigger in my world than that :)

Don't Spill your Soup.

I've been too focussed on the ‘Etta problem’, aka trying to make the reader love my unassuming, guilt-ridden, loyal, stubborn, big-hearted, unswervingly ethical, joint main character, just as much as I do, and hiding eggs for the Easter egg hunt (what do you mean, aren’t they teenagers? Well, hubbie’s 42 and he’s never let a pesky little thing like age get in the way of a chocolate scramble) to think about posting. Even though, dear blog, I have missed thee over the past two weeks.

However, I am desperate to tell you about two books which really surprised me in how much I enjoyed them. The first, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, would certainly have passed me by had it not been for the furore I stumbled across over at that large internet book and kitchen sink seller. A reviewer had let out an enormous stinking, howler of a spoiler. The cover has far too many silver stars and sprinkles of glitter for my usual higher echelons of cerebral taste - ok, I'm just not drawn to books with stars on - but the review war had my interest piqued.

Before reading Me Before You, I admit I thought the heated discussion was all a little unnecessary. If somebody was going to get so upset by a spoiler then I wondered if they might prefer to stay away from the high-risk strategy of reading reviews. However, after being absolutely engrossed in and emotionally battered by this tale of a quadriplegic contemplating euthanasia, I was bound to admit that the spoiler really did have the potential to ruin reading and wasn’t one which would be easily forgotten.

Have I hidden the spoiler well enough? I truly hope so!

The second book is The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend. Now, I admit to turning my back on Ms Townsend after devouring Adrian Mole’s teenage hood, his Cappuccino Years and even the hard-backed version of The Wilderness Years after happening upon The Queen and I from many years previously. 

The farce, her usual parallels and satire and her wonderful ability to get away with being delightfully un-politically correct whilst being sub-consciously thoughtful all at the same time are all on top form in the Queen and I. However, this novel was my first taste of feeling used and cheated as a reader. I cannot tell you what happens at the end of the book to cause me to throw it across the room and vow never to spend my precious pennies on a Townsend classic again, for fear of issuing a spoiler of Me Before You proportions. (Happily I hadn’t read her books in order and had snuck in all the Adrian Moles to date before my vow so that I wasn’t forced to renege on my principals on sight of a new launch.) Suffice it to say, never have I remembered the ending of a book so precisely and with so much grinding of teeth.

However, something about the title compelled me to pick up The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year and after laughing out loud at the blurb in the middle of a quiet book store, I decided to give a Townsend novel ‘one more go’. Let’s just say, this book isn’t to be taken too seriously but it makes me smile just thinking about the spilled soup which served as the catalyst to one lady’s decision to turn her back on the world.

I’ve reviewed both of these books over in Chase Magazine, the supplement to the Rotherham Advertiser which you can view here Page 36/37.

Next month I’m reviewing Emma Donoghue’s, The Sealed Letter which has propelled me down a path of literary fiction, so absorbed was I in the plight of the fickle Helen and her hard-done-by husband, and The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler of which I’m only half way through, and totally engrossed so no spoilers please!

What are you reading at the moment? Please share!

Spoiling for a Fight

I happened upon a set of reviews for a book that will remain nameless lest I should spoil the novel for you. It wasn’t the reviews which kept me reading, it was the venom in the responses. The first review was deemed to contain ‘spoilers’, those often tiny and seemingly inconsequential bits of information (‘until his death I…’ or, ‘I knew she should dump him from the start,’) which can ruin a fellow reader’s day. The strange thing is, I couldn’t see the spoiler in the review. I thought it a well-balanced piece of writing which had the power to persuade me to buy a piece of chic lit which only ever normally passes through my fingers long enough to wrap it up to give to my sister.

Not everyone agreed. The reviewer should be ‘banned from the site’. The reviewer has ‘ruined it for everyone’. She should even ‘examine her conscience’. One reader wished she’d never paid for, nor started reading the book although it did beg the question why she was perusing the reviews when she’d already made a start, particularly if she was someone who wouldn’t be interested in knowing which way the plot was going to go before she got there.

Later on, another comment appeared which thinly disguised that the main character had died. I had to smile, I was pretty sure this second reviewer was being a little mischievous. But, on cue, in came the tirade of disappointed bitterness. If there is a link between the total reviews and comments a story elicits and its sales, then this little-known book is going to be challenging Fifty Shades of Grey.

Through the whole debacle, I couldn’t help thinking that people don’t have to read reviews, just as there is an ‘off’ button on the television. I suggest that if a review has the potential to ruin their reading experience, that the potential book purchaser should stay away. Unless, like me, they have the memory of a fish.  

But it isn’t that simple.

If a review is to help us decide whether or not to buy and/or read a book, then we need to know whether we’ll like this author’s writing and whether the story is going to captivate us, make us laugh, cry, giggle or snore. And for that, a review has to include an element of the plot. But where is the line to be drawn between motivating a potential reader to buy the book and ruining it for them before they’ve even opened the cover? Does, ‘We join Paul on his journey to find the answers,’ pique our interest in the stories along the way, or make the need to read redundant knowing Paul makes the pilgrimage, either metaphysically or otherwise? Does, ‘When Sylvia meets her mother again, all is not quite what it seems,’ make us want to find out why not, or is it immaterial now that we know that Sylvia and her mother meet up?

I like to leave book reviews. In this quagmire of a publishing world, the least I can do to thank a writer who has given years of their life to the writing of a book which has captivated me for days, is to say so. Nonetheless, I live in complete fear of spoilers. Many sites do provide a ‘spoiler alert’ tag for the reviewer’s use and regardless of what I have written, I will always affix it to my piece. This isn’t because I think I have given anything away, I go to great lengths not to, but one man’s spoiler is another’s nugget of information and pleasing all of the people all of the time is rarely an attainable pursuit.

Some people positively seek spoilers. Search ‘spoilers’ on-line and a whole raft of websites dedicated to the art will appear because some viewers are clearly desperate for a spoiler of their favourite show. I’d like to know whether it’s to save them the bother of watching or because they just can’t bear the suspense. You only need to look at the news stands and scan the headlines for a nanosecond to know the essential plot lines for every Soap that week. I’m sure that the bigger the ‘spoil’ the higher the sales. Only because I belong to the brain of a fish category do I watch previews of films, entertaining as they are, their ‘spoiler alert’ button is nowhere to be seen. For the same reason I can, and do, look for reviews if I’m interested in a novel by an author who is new to me and I always read the blurb in a book shop, as well as the centre page, to help me decide. I don’t know if I'd be so keen if I still remembered the plot outlines by the time the book reached the top of my To Be Read pile. I won’t watch sport if I know the score, it isn’t the same without that feeling of anticipation. Maybe I'd have a greater sensitivity to spoilers if I had a reliable short term memory?

Do you read book reviews? Do they help your book buying experience or do they frustrate more often than they delight? How much would you like them to say? Please share!

Jackie
I post reviews at Goodreads, Amazon and in Chase, a bi-monthly magazine from the Rotherham Advertiser.