Showing posts with label Claire North. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Claire North. Show all posts

Friday, November 4, 2016

The Serpent by Claire North

4.5 STARS

The Gameshouse - Book 1

This was one of the oddest things I've read in a long time. Deliciously odd. Fantastically odd. Gorgeously odd.

I'm sure there's a term for the way in which this novella was written. Second person POV? Not really. Actually, what it felt like was a storyteller escorting me, the reader, around the story chatting with me while telling the story. It was so very different and a little off-putting for the first ten or twenty pages. The chapters too - the shortest one was a single line, I think and the longest 25+ pages. But it all worked!

And the prose was so beautiful!

I'll tell you what. I am not into audiobooks at all. I lose concentration and just don't enjoy the process, but this book... OMG, THIS BOOK, in the hands of a voice like, ohh....Patrick Stewart? Ooh... Eoin Macken (you remember him, he played Gwaine in the TV show Merlin), he has a lovely storytelling voice. Anyway, in the hands of someone like them, this book would SHINE! Absolutely shine! I don't know who actually DID the audiobook, but it is out there.

It's a fantasy novella? Author KJ Charles called it spec fic. It's set in Venice during the 17th century and while there is no actual magic, there's a very mysterious place called The Gameshouse.

In the end, this was a beautiful, delicious, couldn't-put-it-down read that I enjoyed a whole helluva lot and I will be reading the other two, for sure!