I read a lot of magical realism/urban fantasy/modern fairy tale type books, so when flicking through my kindle unread books, and seeing this title (having forgotten buying it) I assumed it was something like that. It is not. This book is very much set in the ‘real world’ albeit in the slightly unusual reality of someone living with manic depression/bipolar disorder. It’s not the kind of book I usually read, and yet I was pretty gripped.
The main character, Abby (we meet Melody Black quite late in the book) is a freelance journalist and we follow her through her spiralling plunge into a manic episode and hard fought plough through the low that followed. As is often the case when I read on my kindle, I forget the name of the author, and was surprised and impressed to realise that the book was written by a man because I thought the female main character was very believable (apparently the author has experience with mental illness/manic episodes, so that explains why that aspect of the narrative was also very believable).
Now I want to read more by this author (since I belatedly realised it was the guy who wrote The Universe Versus Alex Woods, which I also really liked).
Sarah Wray Writer 