The Susanne

Kate Morton is from South Aus­tralia and is a PhD stu­dent in Eng­lish lit­er­at­ure. And it shows. There are words and phrases in there which betray the author as modern day Aus­tralian whilst depict­ing Edwar­d­ian Eng­land. Also, the book shows traces of many great works of lit­er­at­ure as well as their authors, and beau­ti­fully so. For example, the child­hood games of the Brontë sis­ters must have inspired The Game played by the chil­dren in this book.

And what a book. I was com­pletely unable to put it down, even though exams were only a week away and I should have been read­ing almost any­thing but this. In my opin­ion this is a great summer read which will be a bril­liant com­pan­ion to the beach or keep you com­pany inside curled up under blankets if your summer turns out cold like it is here at the moment.

The ending was a little pre­dict­able but the sus­pense was kept up won­der­fully right up to the end and I com­pletely fell in love with the char­ac­ters. I recom­mend it warmly! Take a look at Kate Morton’s web­site or just take my word that it’s worth it and go ahead and buy it from Amazon!

This is a great book! It has loads of inter­est­ing inform­a­tion about Shakespeare, his life, his interests, his time, his theatres, his inspir­a­tions. It seems an easy read as well; I’m just start­ing it now and am plan­ning to spend the summer on it, pick­ing it up now and then when I feel the urge. I like that about non-​fiction: unlike a novel, you can pick it up and put it down again whenever you feel like it and not have to worry about losing momentum. Plus when I’m read­ing a really good novel I get so caught up in the story that I have to finish it before my mind will open to any­thing else. This is on the cur­riculum for my Shakespeare course this autumn and it will pos­sibly be the first ever text­book that I read cover to cover. Amaz­ing. Why not take a look?