Book Reviews

I bought a load of withdrawn books from the library the other days, at 1 Euro each, a useful source of income for the library and almost guilt free extravagance for me. The selection was eclectic. Titus Groan, Good Night Steve McQueen, a book of short stories by Deborah Moggach.


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(Don't know what I'm doing wrong with the html here! The link works though!)

Anyway, the worst book though was a fairly recently published Irish crime novel. I love crime. Ian Rankin, Aurelio Zen, Janet Evanovitch, Raymond Chandler. But this was the worst written book I have read in years. I kept on with it assuming it would suddenly, magically get better. The writing would sparkle, the plot would spark interest, the settings would be almost tangible, the characters would become believable, engaging and 3 dimensional. But no. It was dire from beginning to end.

I was so incensed, I wrote a bad book review on Amazon. I have never done that before. I felt immediately guilty. I mean, I expect the author is a nice guy but really. What did the publisher, editor and the whole team involved with publishing it think they were unleashing on the reading public? The next Val McDermid? I don't think so. I wrote a handful more positive book reviews for other books I have read recently including A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy. Book Reviews on Amazon can have a huge effect on online sales. I don't understand why more writers and publishers don't ensure there are at least a handful of positive reviews for each book they publish. Lots of books have no reviews and look very lonely for the lack of them.

The only positive I could come up with was, if they published this drivel, surely they won't reject my masterpiece???