Articles

Affichage des articles du octobre, 2012

Flight Surgeon- Michael Jennings

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This is mainstream romance. Jennings writes in a traditional long style, taking care to build his characters, and draw the reader deep into their lives. The "heroic doctor" is very much the centre of the story, playing a handsome but needy romantic. Briana is the centre of surgeon Michael's, attention, a young beauty that appears to be too good to be true. That was almost the story! Both Michael and Briana are amongst the over-rich of affluent society America. Both though are "the right sort", generous with their skills, time and money. Michael's role as Good Samaritan heads the relationship towards disaster. Remember though, this is classic romance. Flight Surgeon is a book for the leisurely holiday, or the long weekends unwind. Some of it was a little too schmaltzy for my taste, and some of the build was a touch long; but overall I really enjoyed it, and I know that regular readers of romance will love this book. The sex is more about good hands than

Puppet Parade- by Zeinab Alayan

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This beautifully written book is full of inventiveness, emotion, and clever re-examinations of a host of fantasy ideas. This is a modern adult fairy story, which draws on so many classic themes and cultural tales that it is difficult to guess which ones were originally uppermost in Alayan's mind. It is not that we need to de-construct to enjoy the story; it is simply that as a writer I cannot stop myself wondering from where the spark came. What we do need to do, if cynical adults, is to re-construct some aspects of our childish selves. After all, this is a fairy story in which wooden puppets can talk. Remember back to when Pinocchio seemed plausible. Now get on with finding your own way onto the train with Oliver and Sophie. Alayan enables us to see a complex world through the eyes of the variably innocent and naïve, whilst at the same time she avoids creating a childish story. Her fairy tale grows out of what is already a fantasy world, one a dimension away from our own, and t