Tricky choice this week. I read Eloisa James’ My American Duchess and I have things to say about it – but I read it for Novelicious, so you’ll have to wait! I also read the second Sam Jones book and that was, if anything, even more fun than the first (Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane references!) but it’s only been two weeks since I made The Black Rubber Dress BotW and I don’t like to repeat myself too often*. So I’m going left field and picking a comic – Part 1 of Body Work, the Rivers of London graphic Novel.
I’ve mentioned Ben Aaronvitch here before (Rivers of London was a BotW and a Christmas Pick for Him) and i actually broke one of my rules reading this – this is actually set between book 4 and book 5 in the series and I was only reading book 3 when I read this (although book 4 may be following shortly). But having missed out on a physical copy of this in its first printing back earlier this year, I treated myself to this at the weekend to see what I thought of it ahead of the release of the trade in April.
I’m not a big reader of graphic novels, so something based on a familiar set of characters is attractive to me. Of course in these cases there’s always the risk that the illustrations won’t match the pictures that you have in your head of the characters. But in this case, that wasn’t a problem for me. This isn’t very long, but all the characters that I encountered in this were near enough to how I imagined them. It’s pretty much all set up for what is going to come next, but it’s fun, witty and feels like it fits with the novel.
It left me wanting to know what happens next, but I need to read book four first so that I don’t ruin anything when I read the next part of this. If you want to try a graphic novel, the Kindle version (read on a tablet) is under £2 at time of writing, or if you trust me you can get your preorder in for the Trade version in Paperback or Kindle. But as it’s so far ahead until it comes out, please do consider buying it from your local comic book store and supporting an indy. If you don’t know where that is, here’s a handy resource to help you. My local shop is friendly and helpful – and will get copies of stuff in for me *justlikethat* without deposit or anything. If you want more recommendations they’ll be able to help too.
* Although do read Sam Jones. It’s so worth it.
