Alys, always

I read this book by Harriet Lane between the 3rd and 5th of Jan (i'm a quick reader and it's not terribly long). From the cover and all the little recommendations from various magazines and other authors I was expecting this to be a thriller. It was not thrilling. It wasn't a bad story by any means, it was actually fairly enjoyable but it just wasn't marketed quite right. It's about a woman, Frances who stumbles upon a car accident on her way home one evening and how this encounter changes her life from a stagnant career as a book editor for a newspaper to a world of elite literary types and how she wriggles her way to success. She is a well developed character and there was a certain underlying not quite sinister-ness to her. Whist reading it I did keep wanting to find out what she'd do next so there was a certain amount of intrigue to the story. The majority of characters held my interest, although there where a couple I would've liked to have heard more about as they where introduced well but not used much beyond that. My main qualms with the book was the ending and how quickly loose ends where tied together. I don't want to give anything away but a relationship that occurs towards the end I found completely implausible and it just seemed an easy way for the author to end the story, it was disappointing and despite a promising start I ended up not too fond of this novel. So the rating for this one then it's somewhere between 2 and 3, like someone who lets you down with so much promise as opposed to a person who never tried at all I guess it was more disappointing cause I thought from its start and the reviews it was going to be great, so it'll just be the 2 out of 5 then.