Yesterday, as The Beatles sung, all my troubles seemed so far away. That was until the postman showed up and force-fed my letterbox a book.

I call this trouble for one reason only (because of course I’m very happy to have received this book) – I am far less than half-way through an Austen compilation. If it were any other book I wouldn’t be so perturbed but a 400 page Austen translates, for me, into a 600 page any-other-book. The question of “why?” can be answered by my saying that more often than not I find Austen so difficult to read due to the differences in language.

We have until September to get through this challenge and it’s almost August. We probably aren’t the highest priority at the publisher’s right now and the books are coming through slowly. And on the day I received mine I’m bogged down under a tome and don’t want to set it aside because I’m monogamous while I’m reading a book.

The word, or rather onomatopoeia, is “eek!”

Yesterday morning I received my first book from Transworld, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. Now it may sound very convenient for me to say this, it being a free book for review, but it’s absolutely stunning! When I saw the cover online, while looking to decide which books I wanted, this was the one that stuck out to me over all the others and in the flesh (so to speak) I can say that it’s even more good-looking. The print is easy to read, the paper very good quality and the cover embossed. It’s quite a thick book and feels lovely to the touch. The reason I chose Prep over others was that the storyline sounded vastly different and, apart from the cover, I was intrigued by the words “boarding school”. As someone who grew up under the guidance of a parent who’d loved the Mallory Towers, The Famous Five, and introduced her to St. Trinians and The Templeton Twins, I am under the impression that Prep will be right up my street.

I’m expecting it to be good but will not be overpowered by this feeling because I know what tends to happen when one is too excited.

From herein there will be page turning…

I interrupt my regular postings to tell you about the challenge I’ve signed up to. Transworld, the Random House imprint, are giving readers four free books, some not yet released, in return for reviews posted on the reader’s blog or Amazon. You pick your books from the list and they send you a new book once you’ve reviewed the last. The challenge is open to residents within the EU and ends in September. You can read about it and apply by visiting the following site (the post is currently the second one down on the page): http://www.between-the-lines.co.uk

The four books I will be reading are: Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, Second Hand Heart by Catherine Ryan Hyde, After You by Julie Buxbaum, and The Wish by Sasha Blake. My reviews will be posted as normal with a note to say that I received the books for review. I may or may not write more posts in addition to the reviews, we’ll see.

Anyone else planning to take up this challenge?

I am ashamed to say I only completed two short books, The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe from The Chronicles Of Narnia but in taking part I got a better sense of my reading habits and reading speed than I have from a year and 3 months of actively getting through books (I started keeping a count in 2009). I didn’t read for as long as I first thought I would so I know now how to proceed next time. I’m glad of the extra writing it caused me to do, the Most Hated Mini Challenge was fun and got me writing on cue and now I’ve a review of a book I never thought I’d write about. It also gave me the idea of posting up my 3 month round-up here so I’ll be doing that later. Well done to everyone else who participated and a big thank you to all the cheerleaders!

This mini challenge is hosted on Lindsey’s site. Participents must discuss their most hated book character. Be aware you may encounter spoilers here.

The thing about Mrs. Coulter of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is that not only is she a dreadful person, there is, in a way, two of her. In the series humans have “daemons” which are akin to their soul; creatures who follow them around guiding them, lending an ear, and sometimes hurting others for their human. This is what Mrs. Coulter’s daemon does often on the woman’s behalf. So you might have thought that the woman herself is completely evil a person, but she gets worse.

Mrs. Coulter is the founder and active leader of The Oblation Board, a church-approved body that hides it’s missions under a cover of seeking to do right. What they really do is kidnap children and do terrible things to them. It seems the only child Mrs. Coulter is willing to protect is Lyra, the books’ heroine.

The Oblation Board separate children from their daemon, believing daemons the key to ridding a person of original sin. Although a child can live without their daemon, as experiments showed, it is only a half-life full of pain, depression, and confusion. The child may get their daemon back but the relationship will never be the same again, the creature will be but a pet. This is demonstrated by way of a nurse at the Oblation Board’s head quarters who walks around as if in a daze with an equally dazed daemon.

Where their is Mrs. Coulter there is also her golden monkey (she kept her own intact) a creature so wretched along with it’s human that it will take hold of another daemon and keep it tight. You can imagine the effect this has on the corresponding human. Where there is Mrs. Coulter there are people who go against the unwritten rule and actually touch other’s daemons. Can you imagine the pain of someone literally touching your soul, someone who has only evil in their heart?

Mrs. Coulter is a wealthy lady, prim and proper, but this is a mask. Even if she believes she is right, and I question this, though it wouldn’t be entirely impossible given the nature of the church in the books, she commits an evil as awful as any devil. Stealing the children she works on in itself is a far lesser crime. Mrs. Coulter will get what she wants and once she’s got that she’ll be coming for you next.