An Unusual Review for a Compelling Book - WITHOUT ALICE

Life as usual has been crazy and provided its own set of guidelines which don’t always match mine... 

The lovely DJ Kirby whose book WITHOUT ALICE came out this week is on a blog tour. She knows from Twitter that I'm a blogger (bad one at the moment) and a reader as well as a writer. So the brave woman asked if I would be part of it. I was honoured to be asked and terrified at the same time.

DJ is a delightful woman that I have met in person once briefly and we should have spoken more, but alas on that night it was not meant to be. Nor was it on Monday night when she held her book launch in London. There was a tube strike and on top of that DS2’s delayed train and his forgotten coat with wallet in it (another story altogether), which prevented me from attending.

This has all left me in a quandary. I read WITHOUT ALICE – in one sitting and I loved it. However that doesn’t make a book review does it? I had planned to sneakily interview DJ during the launch and wrap it all nicely up with photos of the event…

Can’t do that now and as I write this on Wednesday afternoon and my blog post is due up tomorrow. I feel it is a bit late to fire off a bunch of questions. I know I would find it more than inconvenient if someone emailed me and wanted a response asap.

So I’m back to a book review…In desperation I dug through the recycling to considered the weekend papers’ book reviews where they all but tell you the whole book which is fine in a way (many times you don’t need or want to buy the book afterwards – both good and bad). But that is not the type of review I wanted to write nor is it 'me'. So here goes my review…

As I mentioned above – I read WITHOUT ALICE in one sitting. It is compulsive. I needed to know how it was going to work out. I needed to know how I was going to move from thinking the ‘hero’ a complete and utter ***** to wanting him to succeed. I won’t tell you the answers, but I will tell that it happened and all the while exploring the theme of birth and rebirth. DJ is a natural story teller – she had me hooked.

So that’s my review….an utterly compelling story that gives hope (and oh should mention – I wept too – have a hankie ready you’ll need it)