Most full book for a while

Really dragged - especially the reader . Read the first hour several times over a long period as just couldn’t engage

The big reveal was a damp squib

The end was dull

Wasted hours

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

wonderful

utterly incredible. must must must listen to or read. cannot heap higher praise on to this

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Engaging if too long

Needed a better editor
Too many irrelevant characters and not enough compassion between the main players

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Excellent debut

I thoroughly enjoyed this look at a fictional state’s reverence for, and rejection of, their Leader’s wife. Mother, Dupe, Widow or Gangster. It’s set in Eastern Europe after a revolution which could see her hanged but the issues and questions are relevant the world over.
The plot revolves around a team of lawyers preparing the former First Lady’s defence against charges of stealing from her nation. She’s a slippery character but I have to confess I failed to see the charm she’s supposed to have worked on others. There’s a decidedly flabby bit in the middle where the heroine has sex then just sort of decides not to bother any more and the heroine’s father’s explanation of her relationship with her mother is unconvincing at best but those things aside, I really enjoyed the evidence discovery and historical elements. Perhaps it might have worked better for me as a thriller but that’s really for the author to choose!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Impossible to stop listening to!!

Unbelievably well crafted story with fleshed out characters that takes you on a journey filled with detail and twists and turns that you never cannot ever see coming. A book everyone should read and frankly ought to be required reading in schools. Freya Berry’s new book The Birdcage is as different in subject as you can get, but still full of the same wonderful characters, stories and those twists and turns. I cannot recommend her books enough and I am eagerly waiting for her third book…

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Awful

So I've listened to it all as it sounded good off the sample. However, I have no clue whatsoever what this story was about.

Listen to something else and don't buy it.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A story suffocated by its own author

I once had a wonderful creative writing teacher called Mrs Westcott, though she was very strict and could be brutal with the red pen. Less is Best was her motto.
This author would have suffered badly if her book had passed under the gaze of Mrs W. The reader is dragged through one overly descriptive passage after another, the story becoming more and more fatigued by metaphors. A simile here, a simile there, pretty much similes everywhere. The actual plot pops up now and then but is lost over and over as it gasps for breath (see what I did there).
There’s no saving it I’m afraid. I fear even Mrs W would have put this one down and given up, unlike me who made it through to the end for the sake of a book club.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!