Sunday 14 October 2007

The Girls Who Saw Everything by Sean Dixon

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketPublished by Coach House Books.

Anna and Dumuzi are hoping to spend a quiet afternoon making love in a warehouse, that is if they can stop arguing long enough to do so. Their debate about sex for money is disrupted when the ceiling gives and someone falls through. Runner (unusual name, which matches the unusual character perfectly) announces that she is a part of the Lacuna Cabal book club who meet on the fifth floor and needs to return as she hopes to provide the idea for their next book choice.

The members of the group are all extremely different and things often seem to get a little heated. Moreso when Runner and her brother Neil bring an unusual offering to the group in the form of ten Gilgamesh stones. What follows from there is a gripping tale which holds the reader's attention easily. The private stories of each character come to light as we share a fantastic journey with them. A journey which the characters, and readers alike, will find it hard to forget.

I fell in love with the cover on this book. It seemed so simple and exquisite and grabbed my attention from the start. I had no idea about the story within the pages but once I began to read, it was one of those books which just begs the reader to ignore the world around them until the very last page. I was interested in the characters a great deal. Thanks to the writing style of the author, the characters are always a wonderful, yet very different mix. They compliment each other perfectly and whatever else they may be, they are always colourful and adept at drawing the reader deeper into the mystery.

This is probably one of my favourite books though admittedly, it did take me a chapter or two to adjust to the footnotes which were an irritation at first, as I really wanted to just carry on reading the story without that distraction. The notes are really quite comical at times though and they grew on me. It's an unpredictable read filled with so much energy, strong emotion, and heartfelt tenderness.

A great book to curl up with as the evenings grow colder.

Author's website: http://lacunacabal.blogspot.com/

3 comments:

Katie said...

I'll have to add this one to my list. It sounds really really great.

Charlene Martel said...

I really enjoyed it. I hope you do too :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Charlene,

I'm the UK editor of The Girls Who Saw Everything - we're publishing it over here in July. I loved your review and wondered if you would mind if we quoted it in our hardback edition?

Could you email me to let me know? clare dot hey at harpercollins dot co dot uk

Many thanks,
Clare