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Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering #Review

  I am delighted to feature Jane Lovering's Happily Ever After  which was published by Boldwood Books on February 17th.   Andi Glover loves nothing more than a good book. Any book in fact because when you’re raised by unconventional parents who think school’s for squares, alongside a deeply conventional sister who escapes home as soon as she can, fiction is eminently preferable to reality. The only problem is that fiction isn’t the best way to learn about the real world. When Andi starts her new live-in job at Templewood Hall for the eccentric Lady Dawe and her enigmatic son Hugo, it’s tempting to think she’s fallen into the pages of one of her favourite gothic novels. But the plot twists at Templewood Hall are stranger than fiction and it’s not long before Andi questions if she’s living in a romance novel or a whodunnit. Bumps in the night, a missing heir, ghostly apparitions and secrets that have been kept for generations - the mysteries mount up. Then there...
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After Alice by Gregory Maguire

    After Alice by Gregory Maguire is a re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Ada, who is mentioned in Lewis Carroll's work, sets off to find Alice and a minute late, tumbles down the rabbit hole herself. We follow her search for Alice in the subterranean world of inconsistent rules and strange happenings, as she meets some of the familiar characters found in the original. Above the ground, Lydia, Alice's sister and Ada's governess are on the lookout for the girls. 

    The premise of the book sounded quite interesting. Modern takes on Victorian literature always appeal to me but I found that the style of writing made it a difficult read. The vocabulary and sentence structure were self- consciously complicated. I also found that that two parallel plotlines, one above and one below the ground seemed separate and unconnected. Including real life people such as Charles Darwin was a nice touch however and Victorian Oxford was a welcome character in the book. 

In short: a slightly disappointing journey down the rabbit hole. 

Thanks to the publishers, Headline, for a copy of the book via Bookbridgr. 
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