"The feeling I got from this book was the same pleasure I felt when Pratchett first broke onto the scene"
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The premise of the book, that there is a hidden society of mythical creatures continuing to live among us, or in a 'protective' captive breeding programme, requires the reader to suspend disbelief. After the first chapter or so my disbelief had been abandoned like the owner of a silver saloon who leaves it in the carpark of a vast shopping mall, and then goes home by bus.
The feeling I got from this book was the same pleasure I felt when Pratchett first broke onto the scene, Dunkley is a new author and his imaginary world creates something new entirely. I greedily read the entire book in two sessions, which would have probably been one sitting had not the device I was reading on run out of juice part way through.
I'm not going to spoil the book by giving away too much of the plot or storyline, but if you like humour and need something to take you out of yourself for an hour or two, this book will be for you.
I hope the author writes some more, as this is a fresh, newly-minted imaginary world. It's light-hearted and believable in an unbelievable way.
My main observations would be that the opening scene was a bit sparsely written; Dunkley's style improves further into the book. There are a few sentences that didn't quite hang together in English as she is commonly written, which stopped the flow of reading somewhat, but for a first book and a self-published one at that, this is an accomplished bit of writing. I'd have liked 'more' - the book could have been fleshed out quite a lot - some of the characters for instance could have been developed further which would have added to the enjoyment of the reader.
There was a little too much dwelling on the motif of being clever at the cost of religion, in particular Christianity. This seemed to come across as a hobby-horse of the author which had been levered into the book without really adding to it. I hope in future writing this theme is omitted. I'm not religious, but feel this topic was overplayed.
I'm looking forward now to the next book from this author. I'd certainly recommend that you read this one.
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