E-books/audiobooks review: Fiction

House of Cards

by Michael Dobbs

Simon and Schuster

(e-book)

House of Cards is the internet sensation du jour. Streaming exclusively via Netflix, this political drama series is being credited for revolutionising the way we watch television - without, for example, a television. This may be a bridge too far. But the political satire, starring a wonderfully oleaginous Kevin Spacey, had me downloading Michael Dobbs' original 1989 novel. Also adapted into a successful series by the BBC, Dobbs' story follows the Machiavellian schemes of Francis Urquhart. On the page, he is a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed political schemer who pursues his ambition to be prime minister by disposing of the competition. Having spent a career behind the scenes as Chief Whip (the party enforcer), he puts his understanding of politicians' sins and peccadilloes to dastardly use. In this he is aided by young female journalist Mattie Storin, whose ambition he manipulates. This is a slightly clunky, but intensely entertaining page-turner about spin and the media that has aged well over the years.

Extras: foreword by Michael Dobbs.

At First Sight

by Nicholas Sparks

(read by David Aaron Baker) Hachette Digital

(audiobook)

New to download, At First Sight is a classic Nicholas Sparks romance. A sequel of sorts to his schmaltz-fest True Believer, it stands alone, albeit as unsteadily as a drunk in need of a strong, firm bar to lean on. Our central couple are Jeremy Marsh and Lexie Darnell, who met and fell in love in part one, and now are engaged, pregnant and preparing for a life in a Gap advert. Then along comes Rodney, Lexie's old flame. Having caught Rodney and Lexie in a more than friendly clinch, Jeremy's jealousy is further aroused by a series of anonymous e-mails suggesting that he is not the father of Lexie's child. This is not love at first sight but suspicion at first sight. And Jeremy is a journalist who specialises in exposing hoaxes. Ironic or what? It all speeds to a frankly absurd climax that drowns nuance with melodrama, and tragedy with sentiment. Sadly, matters are not helped by narrator David Aaron Baker: his reading alternates between simpering approximation of emotion and an overly-chirpy episode of Dawson's Creek.

Queenie

by Jacqueline Wilson

(read by Finty Williams)

AudioGO

(audiobook)

Jacqueline Wilson is one of the world's most successful children's writers. Queenie, set in 1953, shows why. Elizabeth II's coronation is planned for June, and young Elsie Kettle is excited beyond words. She and her beloved Nan are planning to go to London, visit Hamleys toy shop, eat at a Lyons teashop and of course see the newly crowned queen. Then it all goes wrong. First Nan and then Elsie contract TB and are sent to hospital. Elsie's mother, who works at a Butlin's holiday camp, is not especially pleasant and not especially worried. Luckily, Elsie makes several important friends from her sick bed. There is an angelic nurse called Gabriel and the titular hero: a white cat named Queenie. Elsie rapidly becomes a star on the ward thanks to the stories she tells her fellow patients. It is a charming, rather moving tale, with slightly melancholic undercurrents. My only gripe was with Finty Williams' rather babyish reading. Still, the ending had me wiping a tear from a jaded eye.