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My Traitor's Heart

Rian Malan

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In '70s' South Africa, Rian Malan – descendant of the architects of apartheid, middle-class white...

David McK (3372 KP) rated A Clash of Lions (100 Years War, book 2) in Books

Mar 31, 2024

The second of AJ MacKenzie three 100 Years War novels following the exploits of the Herald Simon Merrivale, which - this time - moves the setting from France across to the Scottish border.

I'm also finding this a little bit hard to rate: whilst the *story* was interesting, as was the history, I found the prose itself to be a little bit too dry; never really grabbing me and sucking me in the way a, say, Bernard Cornwell might.

I'll still read the next in the series, though.

Kudos

ClareR (5681 KP) rated Folk in Books

Jan 24, 2018 (Updated Jan 24, 2018)

Folk

Zoe Gilbert | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

An atmosphere that draws you in (2 more)

Beautiful prose

Interconnected short stories

Fairy tales for grown ups

This collection of short stories is set on the island of Neverness. All of the stories are interconnected and characters reoccur as adults after they were in a story as children. We see how an experience in one story then becomes a cautionary tale or a fairytale in another. I loved the atmosphere in this book: menacing, dreamlike, happy, sad - like a fairytale really.
The language used was really very poetic. If you're attracted to this as a Fantasy reader, the language is weighted more on the 'Literary Fiction' side. I like both, and this didn't even occur to me until I read another review on Goodreads! There are plenty of Fantasy writers out there whose prose can be lyrical!
I also liked how the beginning and the end of the book were connected. Very clever, original writing, this is a short story collection that didn't feel to me as though they were short stories. Well worth a read!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this gorgeous book!