Reading Review

Maternity leave has done wonders for my reading so far. Here are my latest books.

The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon

As ever epic in both length and content, this latest installment in the Outlander series had me gripped.

Gabaldon is great at mixing new characters with the old, mixing description with action and providing an informative historical perspective.

I did miss the change of scenery in this one - until now, each novel was more or less set in a different country - but it was still full of fresh sides to the story and new developments.

39 Steps - John Buchan

I received this book as a 'children's classic' many years ago and finally got around to reading it now. Luckily it is fairly short so it wasn't too arduous to read but I really don't know why a child would read this.

It's a wartime spy story following the protagonist as he flees from German spies from London to Scotland and back again. The story itself is good but it's couched in pages of description and landscape which really hold up the narrative.

What also put me off were the numerous typos in my edition, even though it was not printed in a time before spellcheck!

The Horse and His Boy - C.S.Lewis

Continuing the Narnia series, I flew through this one in a couple of days. I had remembered this one as the odd one out of the series but it's really not. The main characters are new but they link up with the main characters from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the narrative takes place in the same world.

The story follows Shasta and his flight from a miserable life of slavery to discover his true past. It's a true adventure story and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to Isabella reaching a suitable age for us to read these together.