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A review by meesha84
Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan
3.0
I previously read The Keeper Of Lost Things in July 2020 after a recommendation from one of my friends, however, this is the first time I’ve seen another one of Ruth Hogan’s books. I was unaware that she’s written another two books in addition to this and Keeper.
There seem to be a couple of different titles floating around for this book, it’s possible that the author changed her mind, as there is also “The Moon, The Stars and Madame Burova.” I’m not sure this is the best title, or the majority of the cover really matches the book description.
It is a good little story, although is a bit overwhelming at first, as quite a few characters are introduced at once and apart from the odd one or two, are well fleshed out. It is based around Billie, who is about to learn a big secret (a secret that keeps you guessing until the very end) and is told between the 1970s in Brighton and the present day.
Billie and Madame Burova are beloved characters and it’s obvious that a lot of thought has gone into them. There’s a whole cast of insanely quirky characters surrounding them, but they’re distinguishable from the crowd and really got into my head.
This also has quite short chapters, so don’t sit down to read it for a short amount of time, I promise you won’t be able to. I finished this over the course of two nights and you will fairly tank through it, trying to second guess the secret. I didn’t predict it, although I got quite close.
There is something missing though - some of the side character storylines could have been a bit more expanded upon and I don’t feel that the childhood racism storyline around Treasure really got resolved. It seemed to be forgotten about when Star came along, but perhaps that was the way it was intended. Also a couple of the characters who appeared in Larkins suffered similar fates, almost like their storylines were going somewhere (Sarah-Jade, the mermaids) and were then forgotten about.
It’s a fluffy and easy to read book, I’m not sure it will be as particularly memorable as Keeper but should keep the boredom at bay for a little while.
There seem to be a couple of different titles floating around for this book, it’s possible that the author changed her mind, as there is also “The Moon, The Stars and Madame Burova.” I’m not sure this is the best title, or the majority of the cover really matches the book description.
It is a good little story, although is a bit overwhelming at first, as quite a few characters are introduced at once and apart from the odd one or two, are well fleshed out. It is based around Billie, who is about to learn a big secret (a secret that keeps you guessing until the very end) and is told between the 1970s in Brighton and the present day.
Billie and Madame Burova are beloved characters and it’s obvious that a lot of thought has gone into them. There’s a whole cast of insanely quirky characters surrounding them, but they’re distinguishable from the crowd and really got into my head.
This also has quite short chapters, so don’t sit down to read it for a short amount of time, I promise you won’t be able to. I finished this over the course of two nights and you will fairly tank through it, trying to second guess the secret. I didn’t predict it, although I got quite close.
There is something missing though - some of the side character storylines could have been a bit more expanded upon and I don’t feel that the childhood racism storyline around Treasure really got resolved. It seemed to be forgotten about when Star came along, but perhaps that was the way it was intended. Also a couple of the characters who appeared in Larkins suffered similar fates, almost like their storylines were going somewhere (Sarah-Jade, the mermaids) and were then forgotten about.
It’s a fluffy and easy to read book, I’m not sure it will be as particularly memorable as Keeper but should keep the boredom at bay for a little while.