Il rubino di fumo

You know this smart and swiftly paced Victorian mystery is written for young adults, right? You know that doesn't mean dumbed down or raw, but rather that it should not be cluttered up with obtrusive literariness or head-scratching ephemera. You say that Pullman struggles with figurative language an Leggi tutto

i read this trilogy approximately 7.5 million times when i was younger. so good. and it taught me all i know about opium use. no kidding.

With a subtitle of "A Sally Lockhart Mystery," one might expect the first installment of said series to be about a girl who restores pinched puppies to their rightful dowdy owners. And you wouldn't be more wrong! The Ruby in the Smoke introduces Sally, a self-made woman already at 16 years old, with Leggi tutto

I'm a big fan of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, so I thought I would give this a try. Heck, I even liked the Golden Compass movie (two words--Daniel Craig). This is what librarians call "young adult" literature i.e. "for teenagers." As such, I find it a bit disturbing. I'm a far cry from a bo Leggi tutto

Hold your horses, everyone, the twenty-something nostalgia has set in. I’m noticing a couple of good, classic books for youngsters working their way back under my fictional radar in the last few months. I read Ruby in the Smoke when I was about twelve or thirteen, probably lured by the promise of V Leggi tutto

Truth be told, I expected something more, but it was nonetheless a truly enjoyable read.

Actual rating 3.5/5 stars. This is the first instalment in the Sally Lockhart quartet, which is a Victorian-era series following amateur sleuth, Sally Lockhart, as she attempts to solve the mysteries of London's dark underbelly, as well as those muddying her own past. I really enjoyed putting my obser Leggi tutto

I'm a big fan of 'His Dark Materials' and 'Ruby in the Smoke' is set in a similar Victorian world, but without the steampunk or magical elements. It's a murder mystery where teenage orphan Sally Lockhart searches for her father's killer and tries to discover his connection to the Ruby of the title a Leggi tutto

I first stumbled on this as an audiobook, and decided to reread because I needed a book written by an author named "Philip" for a challenge. It was just as much fun as I remembered. Very different from Pullman's other, more famous series, this one is really a piece of Victorian pulp fiction. I will

Okay this was one of those titles I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get - and I must admit I was quite surprised and rather pleased. First of all lets get something out of the way - this is NOT His Dark Materials, this is a purely historical story set in and around London in the 1870s. That said Leggi tutto