House of Correction

House of Correction by Nicci French is about Tabitha, who is arrested for a murder in her small seaside village and ends up representing herself in the trial.

The first half is Tabitha in prison, trying to get to grips with what's going on while navigating the trials and tribulations of prison life and preparing for her trial.

All the mundanities of being in prison, and all the details of what's going on in the case are presented well, though it does get a bit tedious and repetitive in places (though, granted, that's very much in keeping with Tabitha's experience). What brings some heart to the story is her interactions with various of the other prisoners, which are often poignant and emotive - though these are few and far between and I would have liked a lot of these characters to have been in it more.

Things really pick up in the second half with the trial itself. While I understood why Tabitha decided to represent herself (and it makes sense to bring some drama to the story - as otherwise she would just be sitting around in prison and the court without taking any active part), it did seem a ridiculous turn of events - which her solicitor did try to point out, to be fair.

But it makes the court proceedings much more entertaining, tense and emotive - and we do get a lot more emotion in this section.

By 100 pages from the end, I still had absolutely no idea what had really happened or how things were going to turn out. One of the main strengths of the novel is that Tabitha herself isn't 100% sure she's innocent, which adds a lot of intrigue and interest to how things develop. And where the story ultimately went was pretty satisfying overall.

So, a good read, all told.

Long Live Evil

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan is about Rae, a young woman dying of cancer, who is given the opportunity to jump into the world of her sister's favourite fantasy book series, to find some kind of flower of life and death that will supposedly cure her in the real world.

I was encouraged by the fact that the audiobook was read by one of my favourite narrators - Moira Quirk - but unfortunately the multitude of different, slightly over-the-top accents for all the characters was a bit much.

I love a meta narrative - and Rae's observations about the world of the books are initially very amusing - but the worldbuilding within the fantasy realm was over-complicated and the additional complexities of Rae's awareness of being inside a book made the story quite difficult to follow.

I was expecting the whole thing to be pretty silly and was pleasantly surprised by the emotional depth and engagement of the opening sections between Rae and her sister in the real world. Then, the tone and humour of the initial sections once she's inside the book were very entertaining. But neither the emotional weight nor the clever humour were maintained for long, and I was very quickly both lost and bored.

So, I decided to cut my losses, since it's a long book and only the first in a series I'm confident I wouldn't have wanted to continue.