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Lucy Cruickshanks – The Trader of Saigon | Review

Title: The Trader of Saigon

Author: Lucy Cruickshanks

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 336

Rating: 4*/5

Lucy Cruickshanks – The Trader of Saigon

I picked this book up because I’m running an indie readalong with my friend Todd the Librarian on BookTube, but I realised after I started reading this that it doesn’t really qualify. It’s published by Heron Books, an imprint of Quercus, and it’s quite clearly been professionally edited and put through rigorous quality checks before it’s made it out on to the market. It’s professionally done, and rightly so.

This is technically historical fiction, because it’s set in Vietnam at some point during the mid-to-late twentieth century. It’s after the war, but before the country’s had time to heal. As for the plot, it’s surprisingly hard to talk about that without giving away spoilers. What I will say is that it involves people trafficking amidst the paranoid backdrop of communist Vietnam, and a dude called Phuc makes some very bad decisions after finding a gambling den.

Cruickshanks’ writing style is accessible and easy to read which means that it’s the kind of book that can just wash over you. She’s also fantastic at creating a sense of place, and it really kicks in right from the opening pages. You can almost taste the food and smell the markets. Cruickshanks has spent some time in Vietnam, of course, but simply spending time somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean you can write about it. Lucy can, and that’s a talent.

Lucy Cruickshanks

Sure, there were bits here and there that dragged a little, but that happens with most books. But the good outweighs the bad, and I enjoyed this quite a lot overall. I might not remember the finer details in six months’ time, but it certainly kept me turning the pages right up to the end. When it comes to a book, what more can you ask for?

Will I read the next one? Maybe. There are so many books and so little time. But I’d like to.

Saigon

Click here to buy The Trader of Saigon.

Cassandra Clare – City of Ashes | Review

Title: City of Ashes

Author: Cassandra Clare

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 416

Rating: 3.75*/5

Cassandra Clare – City of Ashes

Cassandra Clare gets a lot of shade thrown her way from people who think she’s a poor writer, but at the end of the day, how many of those people have sold as many books as she has? That’s kind of why I’m slowly but surely working my way through her stuff. Another reason is because I’m buddy reading them with a couple of YouTube friends, Kitkatscanread and Damian Terriquez. And of course, I’m also kind of invested in the series now. That’s probably my fault because I also watched the series on Netflix, although that also has the effect of spoiling me on pretty much everything.

I’m not going to go too much into the plot here because it’s the second book in the series and also because it’s pretty obvious what you’re in for. The bad guys come along and the good guys save the day, that’s what happens in these books. But I did enjoy the story for what it was and I also actually quite like Cassandra Clare’s writing style. Sure, it might not be highbrow literary fiction, but she keeps you rolling on through the pages. If her books were food, they’d be a McDonald’s. But sometimes I just want to eat a McDonald’s.

There was some cracking dialogue here that I appreciated and I think the characterisation was pretty good too, even with more minor characters. I still think that the bad guys in this series are a little disappointing, but I almost read this for the banter between the characters rather than for anything that actually happens. I started to get a little bored about two thirds of the way through though and feel like this could have been fifty pages shorter.

Overall though, this was pretty much what I was expecting and I found myself enjoying it despite the hype on one hand and the disdain on the other. I try to make up my own opinions about the books that I read and so far, Cassandra Clare’s stuff has been pretty good. And hey, if I keep on reading the rest of the series then perhaps I’ll discover some magical tip that will help me to write a bestseller. Maybe there’s a mark for it (or whatever they’re called). As you can tell, I paid plenty of attention to the finer details of the Shadowhunter world.