The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova's second novel, is a difficult book to sum up. This mystery-romance-historical novel is the story of a psychiatrist's life that is turned upside down when an artist with a mysterious past becomes his patient. It is an intriguing, involving and hugely flawed giant of a novel which is wholly enjoyable yet mildly dull.

Before I reel off a large number of complaints that I have about the book, I want to point out that I did actually like it. I really did. It was enjoyable and extremely well written in some ways, whilst the plot is an interesting love tangle, which the author deals with well. Kostova is a master of descriptive prose and has a unique style that is highly floral yet often engaging.

But there are so many flaws...

I think by far my biggest issue with the book are the characters. Despite being largely likeable, each of the characters begin to grate very quickly. This is due to the fact that Kostova only has one voice. Each character, whether male or female; old or young(ish); psychiatrist or housewife; uses the exact same tone coupled with some incredibly pretentious vocabulary. They are all so mind-achingly middle-class you start to wonder if Elizabeth Kostova has ever left the country-club. Also, it seems that in Kostova's world people are more than happy to spill their most intimate and private memories to anyone off the street who claims to be a psychiatrist. I mean really, do these people have no decency?!

One last little flaw (ok, maybe not that little), which in fact could also be applicable to The Historian, is the ending. I can only guess that Kostova was so involved in writing The Swan Thieves that she got to page 500 and then realised that she really should finish it soon, so threw together a few pages which in a matter of paragraphs managed to simultaneously consolidate a relationship that had only started to bloom a couple of chapters ago; cure a psychiatric patient of an illness that had plagued him for years; and solve a 300 year old mystery. Impressive in a way and yet frustrating and unsatisfying in a literary sense.

Once again I must say that despite its many, many flaws, I really did enjoy The Swan Thieves. Although not as exciting or enjoyable as The Historian, it really does draw you in to the world of art, history and romance that Kostova has created – although looking back I find it hard to see how! In all honesty I'm not a fan of classical art, historical fiction or romance, so to have held my attention so well it must have been doing something right.

Recommended – but you have been warned!

Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes

In Little Hands Clapping, we delve into the weird and darkly wonderful world of Dan Rhodes, where Museums are dedicated to suicide and their curators eat little more than crackers, cake and spiders; Doctors are - at least in one instance – cannibals; and love can conquer, or destroy, all.

The story follows various seemingly unconnected stories, some of which span the entire novel, eventually gravitating towards the previously mentioned Museum of Suicide; and some that pop up almost randomly throughout the novel, like windows into the bizarre world of Rhodes.

As with Gold, a previous Dan Rhodes novel I reviewed, Little Hands Clapping is fairly lacking in the plot department. The blurb tells us that the characters of the book will be caught up in a crime that will shock the world... OK, so it is a pretty bad crime, but one that becomes apparent very early on in the novel and there is never a real shock involved. The most important aspect of the book is the highly descriptive and downright beautiful prose. Without Rhodes' exemplary way with words, Little Hands Clapping would be a dull and wholly pointless little book, but instead it is transformed into a sweet, funny and mildly macabre novel, which was a real treat to read.

Dan Rhodes' style of writing has often been called 'lad lit', but I don't see it that way. I think its whimsical, plodding nature would make it more a choice for the art/drama student, rather than your typical Bravo Two-Zero 'lad'. Either way, Little Hands Clapping is a bizarre, sometimes melancholy, but thoroughly enjoyable, if unconventional, novel.

Recommended.

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman is Hoffman's first fantasy novel and a huge leap from his previous outings – The Wisdom Of Crocodiles an odd and harsh look at modern life, and The Golden Age of Censorship, a black comedy based on Hoffman's experiences as a film censor – it follows Thomas Cale, an acolyte from the barren and vicious land of The Sanctuary of Redeemers, and his friends on a journey as they escape their torturous existence at the hands of the brutal and zealous Redeemers, through to a blissful life of sinful pleasure in the city of Memphis, but the Redeemers will not give them up easily.

The book is soon off at a blistering pace and rarely slows down to catch its breath. Hoffman brings in new characters, gives them a beating and then kills them off almost without warning. If you like your novels violent in a fun kind of way, you can't go wrong with The Left Hand of God. It does, however, have a softer side, introducing love interests for some of the main characters, even though they are often treated by the author as badly as the Redeemers treat their unfortunate acolytes – torturing them with miscommunication, misunderstandings and wrongly assumed hostility.

The pace of the book is one of its best qualities, but it is also where it falls down slightly. Because of this urgency to get to the next fight scene, some of the sections that deal with the politics of the land are built up to seem important only to be forgotten about straight after and not really mentioned again. As well as this, some of the characters are slightly underused (such as the great Kitty Hare), but the ones that survive the book will hopefully be brought back in the sequels (which, by the way, are planned).

Well worth a look!