29088586The Other Alice by Michelle Harrison

If 13 Treasures was the story that brought Michelle Harrison to us as a storyteller, and Unrest was the book to show how powerful, scary, and disturbing a storyteller she could be, then her latest novel, The Other Alice, is the book that shows she has truly come of age.

There can be no doubt that Lewis Carroll’s classic was in Harrison’s mind when she named the title character as the threads of the real, the unreal, and the might-be-real run through this book. With characters coming to life out of people’s imaginations I was always going to love this book, as it shares so much with my own stories, but Michelle’s approach is as always unique.

I loved the sneaky references to her 13 Treasures series, during a story that kept you guessing right to the end. There might be no fairies in this, Michelle Harrison’s sixth book, but it is a world in which fairies and fairy magic could exist. Indeed a writer who has their world’s come real, and and a musician who can lure people in with his music owe much to the ballads of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin, and the fairy magic thereof.

If I could have rated this book 6 or 7, or even 10 stars I would, and I feel sure that this story will become one of my treasured favourites to read, and re-read, again and again. Magic.

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