Reviews mania over

Another day brings me to the final book to review.
After this, it is back to the reading for me.... thank heavens for that.


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The Small Hand - Susan Hill
This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me.
It is a ghost story by a modern writer so as  love them that got me interested in this one. It was a really quick read as it only took me about a day to read it. The disappointment for me is that it is only 204 pages and it actually could have done with a good culling of about one hundred of them. The underlying story is good but it is let down by all the excess padding in the story.
If the story had just focused on the story of Adam Snow and his strange encounter at the deserted house then we would have been okay. Unfortunately Adam has to go book hunting for his clients and go off to a monastery, visit his brother.. oh no wait.. his brother actually tie into the story so we can leave those bits in. That should be about 3 pages saved. Adam comes across the house whilst he is driving around finding his way home form visiting one of his wealthy clients. The only reason the client is in there is to be a vehicle to get Adam in the area and then later on the client's wife takes an interest in what happened to Adam and finds out its and pieces about the history of the house for Adam. Guess he was too busy dealing books to do that himself? The only reason Adam goes off to the convent is to show us that the thing is haunting him not the location of the house... and this is important why? the whole thing about Adam buying the Shakespeare folio serves no purpose to me at all. So the thing haunts him away from the house so he finds that he is not safe from it anywhere, so he is more scared... okay there are other ways to get to that point that do not required  introducing a whole new aspect to the story line. If you are a good writer you should be able to find a way to get your point across without doing this. It just feels that a lot of the action in the story line is unnecessary and that takes away from the punch of the story.... and that is a shame as the premise is good.
The ending is good and the way it ties in with Adam's brother has been nicely done but apart from that a it of a let down.
I have ordered another one by Susan Hill so it will be interesting to see what that is like.

Title: The Small Hand
Author: Susan Hill
204 pages
Profile Books
ISBN nr 978-1-84668-240-7

An official recount has been carried out on the books status and I can confirm that I now have 99 books still waiting to be read... hurrah I was right at the last count.