Rosie Hopkins

In some of her novels, Susan Howatch has a tendency to present us with the big dramatic scene and then leave it at that. One thing I particularly enjoyed about this book was that we got to see some of the mopping-up operations and other results, rather than being left either to imagine them or to assume that everyone would live happily ever after.

The author admits that he is ashamed of having enjoyed Anna Buchan's novels in his youth, and spends most of the book trying to prove that he has moved beyond that "middlebrow" stage. He denigrates the work of both Buchans for being "inauthentic", on the grounds that it is not "modern" (by which he seems to mean, that it does not contain large amounts of rudeness, graphic violence and sex - hardly a surprise in novels of the first half of the twentieth century!). He provides no evidence for many of his assertions, and seems to assume that anyone who has ever commented favourably upon the novels, whether a member of the Buchan family or not, must have been biased or simply lying. To make matters worse, the book is badly printed and could have done with a proof-reader.

Might have been even higher, but for its blatant neglect of "the best symphony orchestra chorus in the capital"!

I was enjoying this, but found the ending very unsatisfying. It sounded as if we were being very crudely set up for a sequel, but I don't know whether one exists.

Repetitive, self-indulgent ramblings.

I have to take issue with the previous reviewer - in my opinion, this book is entirely balanced. It does not minimise the suffering caused by the conflict to people on both sides. It also makes it clear that one side is in a far stronger position than the other, which may not be "balanced", but is the truth. However, for anyone who wants a Jewish perspective on the situation, I would recommend Susan Nathan's The Other Side of Israel.

Wow. This is a wonderful account of God's love and our response to it - the first that made me think "God loves me" rather than just "God loves everyone". At the same time, it isn't written from the perspective of a higher plane; Bishop Gene clearly struggles with faith as the rest of us do, and is honest enough to admit it.

Not being interested in fishing, I didn't expect to enjoy this much. I was wrong. The style was enjoyable - it is a "classic", after all - but more than that, I appreciated the sense of peace and the picture of a lost world.

This was an enjoyable read. But given the number of errors I spotted dealing with the small number of books covered that I know about, I suspect that the author was not too concerned with accuracy. A pity.

My husband wrote this!