Customer Reviews

Never the Bride

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was highly original. It takes place in a small touristic town in England and includes lots of traditional horror characters and concepts.

What I liked most about the book was that it had a strange and kooky(as the title of this review says) feel to it. I enjoyed how many weird and different characters the author employed. Some long established in horror literature, which he gave a new spin to. I'll never look at Ms. Claus and Dracula the same way again.

What I didn't enjoy so much was that the book ended too quickly. A couple of different mysteries and bam, it's over. It didn't give the closure you expect from a book, even if it's a series.

If you'd like an unusual and light read, with a major dash of mystery, this is the book for you.

This is a great read. Brenda and Effie are colorful characters and feel like they could be someone from your family. An eccentric (perhaps supernatural) great aunt.
Writing style reminds me a bit like Cory Doctorow, crossed with a little Doctor Who.
I'm excited to get the rest of the series! My only wish is that they were more available in the USA.

This is a book to cherish, the first novel in Paul Magrs's ingenious and inventive Brenda and Effie series, set in wonderful Whitby where, as we all know, Dracula landed and where Goths gather several times a year. If you like Pratchett, you should enjoy this. Who wouldn't root for poor Brenda, the Bride of Frankenstein trying to eke out a respectable living as a seaside landlady? And what is the sinister Mrs Claus up to at the Christmas Hotel? Studded with horror references like plums in a pudding, this novel is a delight for lovers of the macabre who like a good dose of intoxicating wit to pour over the concoction and set it alight.

Read this book! Read the whole series! And, if you haven't already done so, visit Whitby!

The first time in a long time I've been genuinely surprised by a book. It's a light and quick read, but you'll be surprised by the storyline (don't read too much about the plot or you'll miss enjoying the fun surprises). Quirky and humourous, I'll definitely be picking up the next book by Magrs.

Here's the deal: if you're going to have a ridiculous, fantastical premise for your novel, you'd better follow through with some highly imaginative storytelling or a lot of humour to let us know that you appreciate how ludicrous your basic concept is. Paul Magrs does neither. His heroine is Brenda, the original Bride of Frankenstein, who now operates a B & B in Whitby, England, where, with the help of her friend Effie, she battles supernatural baddies. Apparently, Whitby is a gateway to Hell so all kinds of shifty, dangerous characters reside in the neighborhood.

Magrs has a fun premise to build a comic, Terry Pratchett-esque story around, but he settles instead for a bland, cozy mystery with a dollop of horror. What's worse is that he structures his novel in a clumsy, episodic fashion. This gives the book the feeling of being a first-draft treatment for a TV series rather than a properly planned novel. Magrs can write, it's just that his plotting doesn't come close to matching his prose. Magrs has written for Dr. Who in the past, and that's what this novel comes across as: a Dr. Who story minus the doctor and minus the imagination.

Read more of my reviews at JettisonCocoon.com

It's a page turner for sure, but it lacks that something that gives you satisfaction once you've got to the last page. I expected more from a story that tells us about the bride of Frankenstein, who - as the title reveals - never gets to be one, and then enter Count Dracula in a cameo that makes you wish you could go back an edit out that blasphemous alteration of the image you had had of this extraordinary Count.

But I must say, the book was unpredictable, which I think I must credit the author for. He is original. I think the book ended too soon. It's as if the last chapter was ripped out of the book. Some characters that seemed important simply dissolved into insignificance towards the end. What happens to Robert, who was described as a young and bright man being controlled by an evil Mrs Claus? What happens to the missing staff of her hotel? What happens to her? I certainly would have loved to know.

The book has an open-ending, and we're supposed to imagine what happened next. Like I said, it ended too soon, it didn't even make me want to imagine what may have happened. I don't know if I would read a sequel, though.