francesmthompson's reviews
896 reviews

I found this much easier to read than Rebecca, weirdly, though loved both. Shows du Maurier's real talent for creating an enticing historical drama.

I would give this a 4.5 if I could as it really is essential and very easy reading for beginner indie authors out there. It's informative, punchy and encouraging reading for anyone new to the author publishing and it's a great base to form a (very long!) to do list for marketing your book and future books. To be revisited...

I read Tulip Fever in almost one sitting on the flight to Dubai from Amsterdam, where I now live. It was recommended to me by my favourite fellow reader - my mother - because of the setting of Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century, its focus on the fast-growing trend of portrait painting and the rise and fall of Tulipmania on the stock market, something I knew little about.

I found the historical references, descriptions, facts and details fascinating and I wildly appreciate all the author's hard work to research, collate and squeeze as much data in her flowing text without interrupting the natural progression of the story. This book is the ultimate companion for anyone who visits Amsterdam and plans on spending all their time in the Rijksmuseum (which is easily done - it's a huge museum).

I also enjoyed how quickly the story began and how promptly the reader is thrown into a web of lies, scandal and lust all told in very beautiful prose. Plot twists kept me turning the pages and there was a wonderful crescendo of tension was almost as comical as it was angst-ridden - kudos to Moggach!

Historical fiction is not my cup of tea at all, but the history lessons I learned about a place I loved and a Dutch institution - tulips - left me feeling satisfied as much with my new knowledge as I was with the charmingly told story of full-of-life characters in old Amsterdam.

A moving, insightful and poignantly honest biography of a woman I have long been fascinated with because of her varied and rich career, although she remains relatively unheard of.


A novelist, criminal writer and wartime correspondent, the life of Fryn Tennyson Jesse (the great niece of Alfred Tennyson) is dissected tirelessly by Joanna Colenbrander who was her assistant in the last decade of her life. Based mostly on Fryn's own correspondence and that of those closest to her, which include a number of characters brought vividly to life through Colenbrander's own attention to detail, there are more than a handful of moving quotes which I now treasure. Furthermore, Colenbrander's beautiful use of language goes a long way to keep the reader captivated with clear description and creative prose. What I found most touching about this story was how revealing the author is about Fryn's flaws - her addiction to drugs, her uncompromising mood swings and, in her darkest bouts of depression, her poor treatment of those she loved.

If you have the smallest inkling of interest in Fryn Tennyson Jesse, I believe this is the only biography out there that will inform, inspire and educate in an unrivalled way.

I would have happily given Scoop by Evelyn Waugh a big fat 4 or maybe 4.5 stars if it wasn't for some openly offensive and racist language and observations he uses. It really did cast a shadow over the whole story, which otherwise rolled and rollicked around like the farce it was meant to be. Poking fun at Fleet Street, politicians, foreign policy, aristocracy and "country bumpkin" folk along the way, there was real charm to be enjoyed here and of course Waugh's prose is effortless but fully effective.

Some scenes required a bit more imagination than others, but the crucial twists centring around mistaken identity and a inexperienced journalist accidentally making the "scoop" of the year, are fondly woven into the plot naturally and simply. The characters and dialogue also carry this novella, and Waugh could have gone on to write a book about at least ten of the players caught up in this satire.

My favourite line... "To a journalist all countries are rich."