WHAT BOOK..?

…are you reading now?

RAGNAR Jonasson’s The Mist – one of a trilogy of thrillers set in Iceland. I discovered these books during Covid lockdown and love Jonasson’s pacing, structure and the barren Icelandic setting. Hulda, the main detective, is a sombre complex detective unlike any I’ve come across before—a real treat.

…would you take to a desert island?

PHILIP Pullman’s ‘The Book of Dust’ trilogy. The notion of parallel worlds where alternative realities exist and people have daemons is endlessly fascinating. The series would give me sufficient reading material for any desert island isolation. Bursting with multiple layers, complex ideas and numerous plotlines and characters, they would give me plenty to think about and enjoy.

If I could only take one of the trilogy, it would have to

Novelist

be The Secret Commonwealth, the second volume. The tension between Lyra and Pantalaimon as they navigate their symbiotic relationship and the dangerous worlds they explore had me on the edge of my seat.

…first gave you the reading bug?

AS a child, I read everything I could get my hands on. My parents brought me to the library every couple of weeks and I loved coming home with an armful of new books to curl up in a corner and read.

I loved Enid Blyton, Noel Streatfeild, Kathleen Fidler and Rosemary Sutcliffe. One of my favourites books was Diana Wynne-Jones’s The Ogre Downstairs. It’s a wonderful fantasy novel about magical scientific potions, night-time adventures, and the strength of family bonds. An exciting tale with lots of fun and humour, I read and reread my copy until the book fell apart.

…left you cold?

IF a book isn’t working for me by about a third of the way through, I tend not to continue with it. There are too many brilliant books out there to persist with something that isn’t drawing me into its world.

Books that have made my blood run cold with fear and sent shivers up my spine include the superb ‘Every Dead Thing’ by John Connolly and several of Stephen King’s novels.

O RUN FOR YOUR LIFE by Jane Mitchell is published by Little Island Books.