THE BOY THAT NEVER WAS

THE BOY THAT NEVER WAS by Karen Perry

 

Pages: 350

Date: 23/01/2015

Grade: 3

Details: Reading Group Monthly read

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The blurb:

“Three-year-old Dillon vanished in the middle of the night. His father Harry can't forgive himself for not protecting his only child. Yet Harry isn't blamed by his wife Robin: she bares her own secret guilt.

Five years later, thousands of miles away, Harry spots an eight-year-old boy in a crowd - a boy he is convinced is Dillon.

Desperate to find his missing son, Harry's obsession tears apart his marriage, exposing shameful secrets and shattering the one thing he and Robin had left - trust.

Why won't Robin believe Harry? What is she hiding? Can the boy really be Dillon? And how far will Harry go to find their lost son?

The Boy That Never Was is a deeply atmospheric and masterfully crafted tale of love and loss that will chill you to the bone. Fans of Rosamund Lupton and Sophie Hannah will fall in love with this debut from Karen Perry.”

My thoughts:

I’m always disappointed when a book doesn’t live up to my expectations but this time it hits me a little bit harder than normal. I bought nine copies of this book just before Christmas and gave one to each of my reading group members. The blurb sounded exciting and the endorsements on and in the cover were more than glowing:

“Truly remarkable” - Jeffrey Deaver

“ Gripping...this tense, unpredictable novel blends a thriller with an intimate family story to produce a most compulsive read” - John Boyne

“A beautifully written mystery is gripping stuff” - Tana French

I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to endorsements by other authors but these caught my attention since I’m both a fan and admirer of each of those writers. Buying ‘The Boy That Never Was’ appeared to be a very safe bet. Except that it wasn’t and I now find myself in the strange situation where I fervently hope my reaction to this book was personal and mood or genre related.  

I had more than one issue with this book.

For starters I had the twist – at least I think it was supposed to be a twist or a surprise – worked out before I reached the half way mark of this story. I hoped the author would pull an unexpected rabbit out of her writing-hat and prove me wrong, but that didn’t happen.

I couldn’t get involved in the unravelling Robin and Harry’s relationship because I never saw their bond as being tight. Watching love die is not that hard when you never quite believed the love was there to begin with. What’s more, I didn’t like either of them; not the way they were before they lost Dillan and not the way they were portrait afterwards. As a result I wasn’t really invested in whether or not they would manage to hold it all together.

And finally, and I know this is a very personal pet peeve, the frequent use of the words ‘in that moment’ got on my nerves very early on.

Overall I liked the basic idea behind this story and, apart from the repetition mentioned above, the writing was quite good, especially for a debut. Unfortunately neither was enough for me to lose myself in the story or care about the characters or outcome. Fingers crossed my reading group members enjoyed it more than I did.

FISH & CHIPS

TITLE: FISH & CHIPS

AUTHOR: ABIGAIL ROUX & MADELEINE URBAN

Pages: 314

Date: 22/10/2013

Grade: 5+

Details: no. 3 Cut & Run

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The Blurb:

“Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are back on the job, settled into a personal and professional relationship built on fierce protectiveness and blistering passion. Now they’re assigned to impersonate two members of an international smuggling ring—an out-and-proud married couple—on a Christmas cruise in the Caribbean. As their boss says, surely they’d rather kiss each other than be shot at, and he has no idea how right he is.

Portraying the wealthy criminals requires a particular change in attitude from Ty and Zane while dealing with the frustrating waiting game that is their assignment. As it begins to affect how they treat each other in private, they realize there’s more to being partners than watching each other’s backs, and when the case takes an unexpected turn and threatens Ty’s life, he and Zane will have to navigate seas of white lies and stormy secrets, including some of their own.”

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When reviewing “Cut & Run” in August I wrote that one of my reasons for rating that book “only” 4.5” was that I wanted to make sure there was room for the grades of the subsequent books in the series to go up. The friends who insisted that I needed to read this series had also informed me that the books would just get better and better, so the slightly less than optimum rating seemed like a good idea at the time. And I guess it was. I did enjoy “Sticks & Stones” more than I did the first book so the grade went up to 5. And now I have finished “Fish and Chips” and wouldn’t you know it, this is my favourite book so far. That isn’t a problem of course, except that I’ve run out of higher grades. On my blog I can – and have – just added a plus to the 5 this book so clearly deserves. Unfortunately, that opportunity doesn’t exist on any of the other sites where I’ll be leaving this review. Therefore, if you’re reading this review anywhere other than on my blog, know that I actually graded this book 5+ stars.

Yes, “Fish & Chips” is most definitely my favourite title in this series so far because the undercover case Zane and Ty are sent on gives them, and the reader, the opportunity to look at and experience their relationship on a whole new level. While the two men decided at the end of “Sticks & Stones” that they wanted to stay together as lovers as well as partners their relationship has, for obvious and work-related reasons, stayed under the radar. In fact their new colleagues in Baltimore don’t expect their working relationship to last for any length of time given Ty’s reputation and the way he and Zane are constantly arguing with each other. And yet, Ty and Zane have been growing closer to each other. They may both run shy of admitting to any deeper feelings but they are at least willing to concede that they want to be together.

“He’d reached a point where Ty’s attitude and cockiness were more turn-ons than annoyances.” - Zane

So the opportunity to spend two weeks as a gay married couple – be it of the criminal variety – allows our two men to act on their attraction in public, without having to worry about who might see them and what the consequences of coming out might be. The fact that Zane has to play the part of the dominant partner while undercover – a role that usually falls to Ty in their private life – brings a whole new dynamic to their relationship; a dynamic both of them seem to enjoy more than they would have expected.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Ty and Zane story if it was all plain sailing. Ty struggles with the fact that he thinks he is in love with Zane, especially since he is sure that Zane doesn’t feel the same for him. And his doubts run deeper:

“Could he really be in love with someone he was afraid to ask about his past?” – Ty

Zane on the other hand is afraid to investigate what he might be feeling for his lover. All he knows for sure is that he is deeply afraid of losing Ty. And while his thoughts and reactions might suggest to the reader that his feelings run rather deep, Zane has no intention of investigating those feelings, never mind admit to them.

“That was the problem: Ty wasn’t his keeper – Ty was his conscience.”

It is wonderful to see how Zane, who for a very long time thought that whether he lived or died really didn’t matter to anyone, slowly comes to the realization that:

“He’d already known he’d answer to Ty, anytime, anywhere. But now Zane believed, for the first time in so long, that he had someone who truly cared about him.”

Of course this book is much more than a love story about two men slowly and carefully finding their way to each other. Being undercover on a ship, pretending to be a gay married couple may sound like fun and games – and very often is – it soon turns out that it is anything but a pleasure cruise (pun intended). Especially after several attempts are made on Ty’s life.

“No matter how many times a person almost died, it never got to the point that it was easy to shrug off.” – Ty

This book was clearly more about the relationship between Ty and Zane than the mystery they were trying to unravel. And although there were quite a few nail-biting and action filled moments in this story even those seemed to be more about the men and their feelings than anything else. I, for one, didn’t mind at all. I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to get a much better insight into Ty and Zane, while they were getting to know each other as well as themselves better.

“Sometimes Ty wished he knew what to say to help Zane, but then he reminded himself he wasn’t exactly what one could call stable, either. There was a lot of pot and kettle going on here.”

In my review of “Sticks & Stones” I worried that maybe I had been misreading the story; the way Ty and Zane were feeling about each other was the complete opposite of what I would have expected. So imagine how happily surprised I was to discover that not only had I not been wrong, Ty himself actually agrees with me:

“If he’d been a betting man he would never have picked himself from the two of them to be the sap who fell in love.”

And talking about falling in love; I guess it is time to admit that I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Ty and Zane and these books. I guess that means I should be grateful to those friends who “bullied” me into reading this book. And I am, whole-heartedly.

 

STICKS & STONES

TITLE: STICKS & STONES

AUTHOR: ABIGAIL ROUX & MADELEINE URBAN

Pages: 322

Date: 21/10/2013

Grade: 5

Details: no. 2 Cut & Run

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The Blurb

“Six months after nearly losing their lives to a serial killer in New York City, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are suffering through something almost as frightening: the monotony of desk duty. When they're ordered to take a vacation for the good of everyone's sanity, Ty bites the bullet and takes Zane home with him to West Virginia, hoping the peace and quiet of the mountains will give them the chance to explore the explosive attraction they’ve so far been unable to reconcile with their professional partnership.

Ty and Zane, along with Ty’s father and brother, head up into the Appalachian mountains for a nice, relaxing hike deep into the woods... where no one will hear them scream. They find themselves facing danger from all directions: unpredictable weather, the unrelenting mountains, wild animals, fellow hikers with nothing to lose, and the most terrifying challenge of all. Each other.”

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Online friends have been harassing me for weeks now, insisting that I need to read these books and hurry up already. I hate it when my friends are right. Not because I have a problem with discovering new to me fabulous books with addictive characters and a wonderful and angsty storyline. No, all of those are things I love. I hate my friends being right about me needing to read these books because I really do not have the time to fall in love with a series that consists of seven and a half books. Don’t my friends know I have books I need to review, ideally close to the release date?

It’s hard to stay angry with said friends if they recommend books this good though. Because of course they are right. I’m loving these books and do need to read them in quick succession because I need to know how this story, these characters and especially their relationship is going to develop. It really doesn’t matter that I still wish those friends had been wrong about these books about me needing to read them. Books up for review or not, it seems that I’ll be spending a considerable amount of my (reading) time with Ty and Zane over the next week or so.

Ty and Zane – sigh – what can I say. I’m only on the second book of this series and I’ve already completely fallen in love with these two men. It is impossible to not smile every time they start on one of their frequent and completely obnoxious arguments. And while the characters themselves may be completely unaware of it – or trying to deny it to themselves, as the case may be – it is so clear that the feelings these two men have for each other go deeper than those of colleagues or even friends. Still, Ty and Zane hadn’t been working together all that long and had been intimate for even less time when they both nearly lost their lives in Cut & Run. And although they are now back working together, even if it is doing boring and mind-numbing desk work, it is clear that neither has come to terms with everything that happened to them in that first book, never mind the attraction between them.

When Zane fails his psychological evaluation they are both forced into taking a holiday from their jobs as FBI special agents, with their future to be determined after they return. When Ty invites Zane to join him on a journey home to visit his family in West Virginia it comes as a bit of a surprise to both of them because they had both noticed how they had started to drift apart. The trip should have been a relaxing opportunity to find out where they stand with each other; do they want to continue with their fragile and undefined relationship, do they even want to continue being partners in the FBI?

This wouldn’t have been a Ty and Zane story though if this trip had indeed turned into a relaxing holiday. While hiking in the Appalachian Mountains with his father, Earl, and brother, Deuce, Ty and his partner Zane run into far more problems that they could ever have imagined. Worsening weather conditions and wild animals are the least of their problems. When they run into a deliberately set booby-trap on the mountains they know they are about to run into a situation they aren’t equipped to deal with. Turning around to gather reinforcements would be the sensible thing to do. One insensitive and hurtful remark from Earl sets them on a course towards conflict and violence – a course they may not survive.

This is one of those books that puts the reader on a rollercoaster of emotions ranging from laughing out loud to reading with tears in their eyes and every emotion imaginable in between. There were so many times I wanted to take Ty and Zane by the shoulders and shake them while telling them to just go with it, give in to the feelings, be honest with themselves and each other. And yet it makes so much sense in the story that they don’t. I loved following these two as they slowly come to realisations about themselves, each other and the way they are together.

“As partners, it seemed like they could read each other’s minds. But as lovers – or even friends – they barely knew each other at all.”

And,

“Zane slept much better with Ty alongside him than he did when he was alone, and they both knew it.”

I could have happily killed Earl when he asks Ty the question that nearly breaks him and had tears in my eyes while reading about the devastating effect this had on the man who seems so strong and self-reliant in every possible way. Deuce on the other hand was a ray of sunshine in this story. I loved the way he managed to get both Ty and Zane to at least start thinking about their feelings and what they wanted and needed.

It may be that my reading of the story up to here was wrong, but to me Ty had always come across as the strong and independent one and Zane as the partner who needed their closeness most. So it was interesting to read that it is Ty who reluctantly admits to himself that he may be in love with Zane - even if he doesn’t know what being in love actually feels like – and Zane who is convinced that his feelings for Ty have nothing to do with love.

There is more, so much more, I could write about this book and these characters, but I won’t. This is supposed to be a review and not a book in its own right. All I want to say before I stop raving about this book is that the last few pages of this story were beautiful and heart-warming – resulting in a huge grin on my face. I’m so glad I already own Fish & Chips, the next book in this series. I give myself a few hours at most before I start reading that story.

INFERNO

TITLE: INFERNO

AUTHOR: DAN BROWN

Pages: 463

Date: 31/07/2013

Grade: 3

Details: no. 4 Robert Langdon

Library

The blurb:

“‘Seek and ye shall find.’

With these words echoing in his head, eminent Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. Nor can he explain the origin of the macabre object that is found hidden in his belongings.

A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon’s knowledge of hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its historic facade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers.

With only a few lines from Dante’s dark and epic masterpiece, The Inferno, to guide them, they must decipher a sequence of codes buried deep within some of the most celebrated artefacts of the Renaissance – sculptures, paintings, buildings – to find the answers to a puzzle which may, or may not, help them save the world from a terrifying threat…”

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And so we may have reached the point where Dan Brown / Robert Langdon and I have to part ways. I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons when I read them a few years ago. When I read The Lost Symbol I was starting to think that maybe it was just more of the same and now that I’ve finished Inferno I know that I was right. Dan Brown appears to have one story in him which he keeps on rehashing and which, it would appear, the public is only too delighted to continue reading.

Up to a point I understand why his books are so popular. There is a huge threat to the world, with both the exact threat and the possible solution obscured by symbolic messages and riddles that only one, unlikely, hero can decipher and solve, thus, hopefully, preventing disaster. Written down like this it should be a winning formula and if sales figures are anything to go buy, it is.

So, why isn’t it really working for me any more?

If I’m honest, I have to admit that I have a hard time explaining exactly why the story just didn’t work for me this time, but it didn’t. I found it too easy to put the book down. This should be a page-turner and compulsive reading but proved to be anything but for me. I got bored with the long descriptions, the writing felt clumsy and I never experienced that sense of urgency that I get when I read a good book, especially a well plotted thriller.

And that is a shame because I was intrigued by the whole mystery revolving around Dante’s Inferno and fascinated by the philosophies behind the threat Robert Langdon is trying to avert. I can’t help feeling that this could have been a captivating read if only it had been about 100 pages shorter, if the interruptions of the action had been fewer and/or shorter, if there had been less repetition in the story, if the writing had felt less clumsy, if…

It doesn’t seem fair to castigate an author for finding a successful formula and sticking to it. Lots of authors have built very successful careers on doing exactly that; James Patterson and Nora Roberts are two high profile authors that immediately spring to mind. And while my feelings with regard to Patterson are not too far of those I expressed above about Brown, I have nothing but admiration for Nora Roberts who can use her formula and still give me stories that feel fresh and new.

Still, the way things stand, and given the amount of new and exciting books being published every month, I think it is unlikely I will pick up the next Robert Langdon adventure when it comes out. Having said that, it will probably be at least two years until that moment arrives and knowing myself, there is a good possibility that by that stage curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll be tempted anyway. Time will tell.

ANGEL CITY

TITLE: ANGEL CITY

AUTHOR: JON STEELE

Pages: 528

Date: 19/06/2013

Grade: 5+

Details: No. 2 The Angelus Trilogy

               Received from Penguin Group/

               Blue Rider Press through NetGalley

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The Blurb:

“Two years after the battle at Lausanne Cathedral, the War of Shadows goes on...

Jay Harper, one of the last ‘angels’ on Planet Earth, is still hunting down the half-breeds and goons who infected Paradise with evil. Intercepting a plot to turn half of Paris into a dead zone, Harper ends up on the wrong side of the law and finds himself a wanted man. That doesn’t stop his commander, Inspector Gobet of the Swiss Police, from sending him back to Paris on a recon mission... a mission that uncovers the mystery of an ancient gift to mankind, born of angels at Montségur, the last fortress of the Cathars.

Katherine Taylor and her two year old son Max are living in a small town in the American Northwest. It’s a quiet life. She runs a candle shop and spends her afternoons drinking herbal teas, imagining the crooked little man in the belfry of Lausanne Cathedral, the man who believed Lausanne was a hideout for lost angels. And there was someone else, someone she can’t quite remember... as if he was there, and not there at the same time.

A man with a disfigured face emerges from the shadows.  His name is Astruc, a defrocked priest wanted for murder; he's obsessed with the immortal souls of men.  Like a voice crying in the wilderness, he warns the time of The Prophecy is at hand...a prophecy that calls for sacrifice of a child born of light...”

                                                                                                    

“The religions and flags of men mean nothing to me, or those like me. Religions and flags come under the heading of free will. We can’t make those sorts of choices for men. It’s a certain breed of evil hiding behind the religions and flags, the ones who sow fear and greed among men, that we’re interested in.”

WOW! What a book! What an imagination and what a story!

When I read The Watchers almost a year ago I was blown away by the book. The idea behind the story was original, well thought out and brilliantly delivered. When I discovered that the book was the first part of a trilogy I was both delighted and a little bit afraid; would the author be able to live up to the expectations he had created in book one? And, before I go on, if you haven’t read The Watchers yet, please do so before starting this book. You will probably enjoy this book without having read the first book but not nearly as much as you will if you know the back-story.

I shouldn’t have worried. Angel City is at least as good as The Watchers and pushes the story forward in a manner that makes perfect sense and yet is full of surprises and unexpected twists. Two and a half years after the battle in Lausanne Cathedral, Jay Harper is still his old unpredictable and hard to control self. Although some of his memories of what happened in Lausanne have been erased – as most of the memories from his past have been – he remembers enough to realize that he escaped from a great danger and that the battle was only started at the Cathedral. And although there is something wrong with Jay Harper, something that may well end his existence once and for all, he is still on a quest to defeat the forces of evil, although he doesn’t know who or what exactly he is looking for and what exactly those forces are after.

Katherine Taylor is living in the United States, protected by forces from the Swiss Guards with her son Max, who was born after she narrowly escaped with her life in Lausanne. Since Katherine’s memories are also being controlled she is not exactly sure what happened in that city or even who Max’ father might be. And although she does realize that she is in danger, she has no idea how big the danger actually is and what form it might take should it ever find her.

Astruc is a priest on a mission. Convinced that he and his assistant Goose are the only forces for good left, he sets out on a quest to warn the world about the Prophecy that is about to be fulfilled; a war between the forces of good and evil that is about to reach its climax and the future of the world and humanity appears to depend – some would say once again – on an innocent baby boy.

Like I said, this is an amazing book. Taking the reader from Montségur in the 13^th century, to Paris in the very near future, from Switzerland to the USA this is a story that begins at full blast and doesn’t let up until the very last page.

Historical facts, conspiracy theories and biblical stories are faultlessly brought together to create a plausible and fascinating plot. So plausible, in fact, that it is almost possible to believe that this could actually happen. In Jay Harper’s words:

“Trust me mate, spend enough time watching the world go by and you learn just because something isn’t possible doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

And it is Jay Harper’s cynical view of the world and the situations he finds himself in, as well as his dead-pan way of dealing with, and commenting on, what is happening with and around him that stops this from being an incredibly dark story. In fact, one of the strengths of this book is that the author manages to combine drama, tension, action, humour, descriptions, relationships and love without ever slowing down the plot. No matter how pleasant a scene in this book may be, there is always that undercurrent of danger that keeps on pushing the story and the reader forwards.

I like that our heroes are as flawed as they come. Jay Harper may be an angel but you’d be hard pressed to call him Angelic. And while Katherine Taylor may be a former hooker she proves herself the most loving mother and loyal friend imaginable. It is impossible not to like these two characters and become engrossed in their adventures. These are two anti-heroes and yet the future of the world and humanity depends on their actions.

And then there’s the cliff-hanger. Did the first book end in such a way that the story could have stopped there, this book ends at such a heart-stopping moment that there is no room for doubt that a sequel is coming. And I have absolutely no objection to another book by this author. set in this world with these characters. What I do have a problem with is that I haven’t been able to find out when this third book might be coming. I really do NOT want to wait another year before I find out how all of this is going to play out.

SEDUCTION

TITLE: SEDUCTION

AUTHOR: M.J. ROSE

Pages: 386

Date: 17/05/2013

Grade: 4.5

Details: Reincarnationist Series # 5

          Received from Atria

          Through NetGalley

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Blurb from the author’s site:

"A gothic tale about Victor Hugo's long-buried secrets

and the lengths we go to for love...

In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo's transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.

Or so it has been believed...

Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L'Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island's mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on the Isle of Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles, and hidden caves.

But the man who's invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she'll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo's lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.

But what neither Jac or Theo anticipate is that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake."

Before I start on my thoughts about this book I should probably point out that I only read one previous title in this series: The Reincarnationist.  Although it is quite possible that I missed connections because I didn’t read all the previous books, I can safely say that I didn’t feel as if I was missing out on vital information. While I can’t be sure that reading all the books in sequence wouldn’t have increased my enjoyment of this book, I can safely say that this book can be read and is very enjoyable as a stand-alone title.

“Every story begins with a tremble of anticipation. At the starting point we may have an idea of our point of arrival. But what lies before us and makes us shudder is the journey.”

This book gives the reader a perfect combination of straightforward thrills and supernatural elements. It doesn’t become clear where the story is taking the reader until the very end of the book. But, while the resolution comes as a surprise, it does come as a logical, yet unexpected, conclusion of the narrative.  

When Jac discovers a letter addressed to her from Theo, a man she hasn’t seen or heard from since she was fourteen she jumps on the opportunity to travel to Jersey and help him unravel a mystery linking back to the time of the Celts and Druids. But when she and Theo first met, both teenagers had big issues and Jac can’t quite remember the events leading up to the moment when they were suddenly and seemingly permanently separated.

Reunited, despite strong opposition from the man who treated them when they were teenagers, both Theo and Jac are once again struggling with traumatic personal issues. Searching for the mystery manuscript, allegedly hidden on the Island by Victor Hugo, provides them with an opportunity to concentrate on something other than the losses they have suffered. But all is not well; Theo appears as troubled as he ever was and Jac, once again, finds herself haunted by visions she can’t control.

“Now he was thirty-three and seemed almost ruined.”

Solving this mystery will not only answer questions about Victor Hugo’s time on Jersey, it will also provide both Jac and Theo with answers they need in order to move forward in their life.

The story in this book is told in two, alternating, storylines. We get an insight to Victor Hugo’s time and struggles on Jersey through his (hidden) notebooks. The story about Jac, Theo and the quest they’re on links into Hugo’s story but goes much further because their mystery has roots in more ancient times. The combination of history, mystery, supernatural occurrences and human relationships make this an intriguing, fast moving and multi-layered story. And I haven’t even mentioned the links to perfume and scents yet.

“Her father always used to talk about how scent connects us to a past we can’t always see, that seems lost but can so easily be conjured up and found.”

M.J. Rose writes beautiful books. Her writing is thoughtful, descriptive and clear. It is easy to see the landscapes she describes and it is almost possible to smell the scents from their descriptions. She manages to give her readers a fascinating and thrilling story without ever compromising on background in favour of shocks. Too often these days it seems readers have to choose between beautiful and descriptive writing and thrilling adventures. Mrs. Rose manages to give her readers both without compromising on either, which means we are treated to reading enjoyment on every level. On a personal note it means that this reader will now have to go back and read all the books she has managed to miss in this series; something I look forward to with delight.