There was some awesome coverage on The Shining Girls on the weekend, just in time for the UK release (It’s out now! You can buy it!) and for the official launch at Forbidden Planet tonight.
Here’s the interview I did with Leigh-Anne Williams on Expresso Show last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEOXS0m3l3g&feature=youtu.be
Sarah Hughes at The Observer said: “It should be the book of the summer…. Forget Gone Girl; now it’s all about The Shining Girls.”
The Daily Mail said: “Confidently written by a South African author, despite the American setting, the dark tale is told inventively and is full of surprises… Keep the lights on.”
RavenCrimeReads said: “[The Shining Girls] transports us through the culturally and socially different periods of American history with ease, demonstrating her breadth of research to make each period perfect in detail and atmosphere. From the shanty towns born out of the Depression era and through the ensuing decades, the reader is instantly fixed in a time and place familiar through the smallest details… It’s a very clever conceit for a story and one that I think Beukes pulls off with aplomb throughout.”
FantasyFaction realises that time travel may not be “everyone’s personal story-chocolate”, but says the book has broad appeal. “The time travel element is very subtle… It fuels the plot but doesn’t take over.”
“Lauren Beukes has an obvious talent for writing about cities, for bringing them to life so that they become as much a character in the stories as the people are.”
“I felt that the author did a good job of neither glamorising nor glorifying the murders, and of ensuring that Harper remains a deplorable character even during his point-of-view sections. Lauren Beukes also gives each victim a voice, and she is extremely skilled at making us care for a new character in so few pages.”
Upcoming4Me wrote: “A completely insane time travel crime thriller as good as anything Stephen King wrote… Fresh, innovative and damn amazing! Read it!”
South African blogger BooksBootsAndBiology said: “Not only is this work a beautiful, fast-paced thriller that straddles genres and engrosses you completely, I believe it raises important issues at such a crucial time in our country.”
More to come, including Cape Times, Beeld and South Africa’s Sunday Times, but I have to go sign books at HarperCollins now!