There's a house in my head now and I'm not leaving it.

Two sittings on a Saturday, which for me is unheard of; I'm a forty-minutes-then-fall-asleep reader and always have been.

I don't want to say much about what happens, because the pleasure is watching a very kind man take careful notes about the tides. The notebooks. The albatross. The way he says the names of the statues like they're neighbours he sees on the stairs.

It made me cry on a Tuesday afternoon with no warning whatsoever, and then I went out and bought two more copies to give away, which is not behaviour a person with my storage situation can afford. One went to my brother, who hasn't opened it. One went to Marnie, who finished it inside a day and rang me at midnight.

Anyway. Ten, no hesitation. If you bounced off Jonathan Strange, this is nothing like that, so don't let it put you off.