Review: Poison by Sarah Pinborough (@SarahPinborough)

Poison by Sarah Pinborough is a new take on the classic fairytale of Snow White. The very first thing I have to draw your attention to is the beautiful cover. It is, literally, shiny and is the kind of book you really want to display proudly on your bookshelf.

You might think that you know the story of Snow White and her dwarf friends, and you may well be right, but the beauty of a story is in how it is told and this is where Pinborough brings new life to the tale. It is more adult than usual, with scenes of a sexual nature that you probably don’t want your eight-year olds reading, so keep this one for yourselves mums and dads.

The story also loses much of its original rose tinted feel which is actually a very good thing. Each dwarf has his own personality and this is the first version of this story I’ve encountered where that’s the case. Snow White too isn’t the sweet young innocent that she is usually made out to be. It adds a touch of reality to the story, I mean really, who would ever be as sweet and innocent as the Disney Snow White? In Pinborough’s version she has a bit more oomph about her and is often found riding wildly through the forests on free-spirited stallions.

In fact it is definitely a story featuring strong females, none of them are of the weedy wimpy variety in Poison. Instead we see the prince as the doe-eyed young chap who falls head over heels in love with a princess he’s never spoken to. Although having said that, he does get one of the finest moments in the book – it’s towards the end so I can’t say more than that, but it is worth waiting for!

I liked the way the stepmother is portrayed in Poison. Yes she is a mean woman, but we get some insights into why she does such evil things and almost pity her at times. She also brings in some nice little crossover moments with characters and events from other fairytales that I enjoyed spotting.

All in all this was an entertaining little read, bringing something new to a very familiar story and leaving you questioning the things you thought you knew about fairytales. I’m looking forward to reading the next in Pinborough’s fairytale series.

Happy reading,

Vinx

 

The Chosen Seed by Sarah Pinborough (@SarahPinborough)

The Chosen Seed is the final instalment of the Dog-Faced Gods trilogy featuring the world-weary detective Cass Jones. It is a bit of a mixed bag as far as I’m concerned. The crime sections were brilliant, with the characters and situations shining out, but I felt a little let down by the predictability of the direction taken in the supernatural strands of the plot.

Check out the full review for this in the next SFCrowsnest newsletter and on the website soon.

 

Over all it was a pretty good series. It had high points (book two), low points (book one) and kind of average points (book three). Would I read more of Pinborough’s work? Absolutely! There were enough brilliant moments mixed in here to make me curious about what else she has written and I’ll certainly be keeping my eye out for more of her books.

Happy reading,

Vinx

The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough (@SarahPinborough)

Book two of the Dog-Faced Gods trilogy by Sarah Pinborough really picked up the pace of this series. I wasn’t wild about book one but The Shadow of the Soul was brilliant. It managed to balance the crime and the supernatural much better, developed the remaining characters well and really kept me turning pages. I’m looking forward to seeing just how the series finished up in the next book and am so glad I kept reading.

Also, the cover is great. My photo really doesn’t do it justice but the simplicity of the image combined with the vivid colours (the orange-red spatters on the turqouise background are really striking) just draws my eye back to it again and again. All three books have distinctive covers but this is my favourite.

Again it is a short review here because this is one of my SFCrowsnest review books – the full review again should be in the next email newsletter that will be out in the next week or two, and may make an appearance on the site (http://sfcrowsnest.org.uk/) sooner than that.

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Sorry for the glut of posts today – I’m nearly caught up with my books now after the PhD viva chaos period, just one more (The Chosen Seed by Sarah Pinborough, finishing off the Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy) to go, which I will try to post later.

Hope you’ve got something good lined up for your weekend reads,

Vinx