Ballet Shoes: The first "shoe" book, and the best (probably)

What to do when a book post is due, but you go through your self-indulgence reads much faster than your slightly more ambitious ones? Try to write about the self-indulgence reads, of course – not that that's necessarily easy, especially when it's a classic like Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (yes, her name is spelled like that: Kathleen in You've Got Mail got it right).

Recently, I tore through Streatfeild books like a maniac, starting with a reread of the Gemma books (sadly out of print) and then moving on to other old favourites. Ballet Shoes was the book that started it all, and the reason a number of Streatfeild books were reissued with shoe-related names like Theatre Shoes (originally Curtain Up), Skating Shoes (aka White Boots) and my favourite marketing tour de force, Travelling Shoes (for Apple Bough). As far as I can make out, this ploy started during Streatfeild's life time, so she must have approved, though I can imagine her being quite sardonic about it.

Anyway, it only makes sense to profit from the goodwill of Ballet Shoes. It is a classic for a reason, and sets the tone for many of Streatfeild's subsequent books that deal with similar themes and, to some extent, characters. Nana in Ballet Shoes is pretty much the same character as Hannah in Curtain Up/Theatre Shoes and Nana in White Boots/Skating Shoes, though they are supposed to be different women, and as late as in the Gemma books Lydia Robinson's single-mindedness when it comes to her dancing is reminiscent of Posy Fossil's.

Ballet Shoes, then, is very much the place to start if you want to try Streatfeild. Rereading it as an adult, I'm gripped by it in the same way as when I first read it (or rather, had it read to me) as a child. Or perhaps not precisely in the same way: you dive into a fictional world more whole-heartedly as a kid, while your adult self can't help being a little more analytical. Not necessarily more critical, mind you, but instead of just accepting the magic you nod and think "that was pretty well thought-out".

As a child, the lives of the three adopted Fossil girls with their different talents seemed like sheer wish-fulfilment. What I notice as an adult is that these kids work hard. There's precious little leisure in their lives even before they start earning money, at the age of twelve. The genteel poverty also hits home a little more forcefully. As a child, I was apt to groan "what, again?" when new audition frocks were needed; it didn't seem so many chapters ago that Pauline got a new one and everyone had to be ingenious in order to drum up the money. What I'd plain forgotten was that all of poor Petrova's birthday money is spent on those new frocks – and she doesn't even like stage work.

Dare I say it, the three girls seem to work quite a bit harder than their guardian Sylvia aka Garnie who, though very sweet, is rather a passive character. Yes, she runs a boarding house, but she is helped by a cook and maid and (the unpaid) Nana. As for any decision-making, it's up to Nana and the incredibly helpful boarders. I understand better now why Sylvia feels guilty about accepting the girls' money, and why she was saddled with a chest complaint in the TV adaptation of Ballet Shoes, in order to make her more in need of looking after.

Luckily Pauline and Posy Fossil take to acting and dancing respectively and consequently don't mind the hard work. The arrangement is toughest for engine-obsessed Petrova, who doesn't enjoy her time at The Children's Academy for Dancing and Stage Training run by Madame Fidolia one bit. Here, the old childhood magic holds, though, because I still think Madame Fidolia's Academy sounds absolutely wonderful and can't really pity someone for "having" to go there. 

Both in Ballet Shoes and in Curtain Up, the conceit that the child protagonists "have" to enlist at the Academy in order to make money grates a little. Yes, in both cases, two-thirds of the enlisted children soon feel at home, but they're not allowed to join simply because they want to go on the stage. It riled me as a stage-struck child and it riles me still. (I may get back to Curtain Up in the future; I think I could fill half a blog post with ranting about how the clearly talented and imaginative Mark gives up stage life for nonsensical reasons, encouraged by his sister who should know better.)

Is Ballet Shoes Streatfeild's best novel? That's debatable: after all, it is her debut book, and in later books her trademark humour and Streatfeildisms are more in evidence (candidly revealing what the characters actually think rather than what they're supposed to think). White Boots is in many ways a more complex story, what with all the intricate plots the grown-up characters think of in order to keep the friendship of Lalla and Harriet intact. However, you can't beat Ballet Shoes when it comes to the atmosphere and set-up: whether in the Academy or in the Fossils' ramshackle home, this is a fictional world you want to spend lots of time in.                    

A fine year for Austen adaptations? Who knows...

I have to confess to feeling pretty tired today, too tired – as it turns out – for any analytical thinking. Even searching reviews of old children's classics are beyond me (I will get to the three best "shoe books" by Noel Streatfeild eventually). But when I have no energy to bellyache over future costume dramas, then all hope is truly lost, so I'll try that.

According to a video I caught on YouTube, 2026 will be a big year for Austen adaptations. The claim was made on the strength of two TV series and one film – one of the TV series is already airing (in Great Britain, if not here in Sweden) and the other two projects are in the pipeline. The simple question to answer, which even I should manage in my knackered state, is: do they look as if they'll be any good?

The Other Bennet Sister: Not really an Austen adaptation, but taking place in the Austen universe, as it were, as it's an adaptation of Janice Hadlow's novel with the same name. I really liked the novel  when I read it a couple of years ago; it made a good case for Mary Bennet without vilifying the other characters. The clips I've seen have looked promising, and the one review I've read so far was very positive indeed. 

There is a risk, of course, that the adaptation will overplay its hand when it comes to decrying the precarious position of Regency women. Not that it wasn't precarious, but I find I'm becoming more and more irritated with period dramas which tut-tut too loudly over the past (and I didn't have much patience with them to begin with). All the same, I'm cautiously looking forward to The Other Bennet Sister.

Pride and Prejudice on Netflix: Netflix doesn't have the best track record when it comes to Austen adaptations. This looks like a more serious attempt than the insane Persuasion from a few years back, though. Weighty actor names have been secured for it: I may be suffering slightly from Olivia Colman fatigue, but there's no denying she's a solid choice for Mrs Bennet, and I can't wait to see Rufus Sewell's Mr Bennet (is Mr Bennet really allowed to be more attractive than the story's love interests?) and Fiona Shaw's Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

What of the central couple, then? Here, I'm more wary. Emma Corrin was a great Princess Diana in The Crown, and made for an amusingly chaotic villain in Deadpool and Wolverine. However, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Corrin got the part of Elizabeth Bennet before announcing themselves to be non-binary. Lizzy Bennet is all woman, and casting an actor in the role who doesn't commit to womanhood is something of an insult to us gals. Corrin could still be good, though.

If you think that's a shallow argument for doubting someone's suitability for a part, then how about this? Jack Lowden, judging from the pictures I've managed to unearth on IMDB, looks nothing like I imagine Mr Darcy. Still, for all I know, he could be a brilliant actor who will carry it off. Also, a spot of hair dye did wonders for Colin Firth, so maybe they'll use the same treatment here? I'm all for ginger men as a rule, but Mr Darcy is... not ginger.

This adaptation of Pride and Prejudice will be worth a watch, even if, as I think we can assume, it won't be able to hold a candle to the BBC version. But as it's a straightforward adaptation of Austen's most beloved book (though I'm more fond of Emma myself), the risk that it'll crash and burn is much higher  than with The Other Bennet Sister.

Sense and Sensibility: Before the aforementioned YouTube video, I had no idea this film was coming out this year, or even existed. For me it's an unknown quantity, which in itself is pretty exciting. The only name I recognised from the cast list was Fiona Shaw, again, in the very different from Lady Catherine role of Mrs Jennings. The casting director hasn't been too lazy but has gone for more unknown names (either that or I'm just hopelessly out of touch), and I respect that.

Now, if there's one thing that's harder to pull off than making a TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that can be mentioned on the same day as the Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth one, it's making a new Sense and Sensibility film when the perfection of the 1995 film exists. All the same, it should be possible to put a slightly different spin on the source material. Sense and Sensibility isn't such a polished product of a novel as Pride and Prejudice, but that can give an adapter a little more leeway.

Not much is known, and much can go wrong, but I'll watch this – as well as the other adaptations, naturally. Be prepared for much bellyaching if they prove to be horrible.

All right, season four of Bridgerton is actually pretty good

Has it come to this? Am I really reduced to blogging about Bridgerton?

As has perhaps become apparent, I'm not the greatest fan of this sumptuous smash hit of a Netflix series. That it should be my kind of thing has only made me more irritated with it when it's fallen short. To be honest, though, my biggest gripe with the show is not the languid pacing (wafer-thin main plots drawn out over eight hour-long episodes per season) or its shallow characterisation but the baleful influence the Bridgerton universe has had on costume dramas as a whole.

From the very first trailer, it was clear: this is Regency England, Jim, but not as we know it. Inexplicably, as it seemed then, the Regency ton was depicted as prettily and modishly diverse. It was as anachronistic as if a Rolls Royce had driven through the streets or the Queen had consulted an iPad to keep track of social events. 

The series later made clear that what we were looking at was an alternative universe, one where George III married a feisty African princess called Charlotte instead of a retiring German princess called Charlotte. Still, the conceit has never quite worked for me. Here's the thing: aristocracy is based on heredity. That's why many, including me, aren't frightfully keen on it. The older the family, according to this kind of thinking, the higher the prestige. The real English Regency élite would not have welcomed foreigners from far-off lands, even if they were high-born in their own countries, into their inner circle without a grumble. Much less would they have allowed the interlopers to supplant local families, at least not without a social upheaval equalling the one taking place in France at the same time. No revolution has shaken the Regency society of Bridgerton, however: the social mores of the ton remain what they've always been.

So what of it, you may ask: can't I give this one series a pass? After all, the premise, far-fetched as it is, has allowed the showcasing of talented actors who would otherwise not have been given the opportunity to try their hands at Regency foppery. And yes, I would be prepared to accept Bridgerton on its own terms, if it hadn't been for the domino effect. The show's success has led to even more wildly unhistorical imitations which don't even bother with the alternative-universe excuse, like the Netflix Persuasion or the episode "Rogue" in Doctor Who. Ideology is trumping common sense when it comes to period dramas; you can even see it in high-prestige projects like the final series of Wolf Hall. This is not exclusively Bridgerton's fault, but it makes its self-congratulating tone hard to bear.

All right then, let's say Bridgerton takes place in a realm entirely separate from any historical reality, a little like the fairy-tale realms of Once Upon A Time. How well does the actual drama work? As mentioned, I have been underwhelmed by previous seasons, but season four was a welcome surprise, and not only because it was an adaptation of sorts of the classic Cinderella story, something I am a sucker for. 

Yerin Ha makes an enchanting romantic lead as Sophie. I was less sure about Luke Thompson's Benedict, but their chemistry carried all before it. The episode where they got to know each other under the watchful eyes of Benedict's old retainers, Mr and Mrs Crabtree, while Benedict recovered from an attack at his "cottage" (a minor mansion), was a delight. Elsewhere, the subplots knitted together better than I'm used to from Bridgerton, and the character moments between the Bridgerton family members actually carried some weight. 

I was particularly pleased to see that Eloise, whom I have wanted to like (as Claudia Jessie is quite winning) but who I must admit has been a bit of a pill in previous seasons, was finally mending her ways after having been called out on her self-absorption by her younger sister Hyacinth. When she reconciled with Cressida, a supposed mean girl (more sinned against than sinning in my opinion) who was brutally shafted in the previous season but who now finally gets her happy ending, I could have cheered.

The season ends with a perfect hook. Throughout the series, a gossip sheet penned by "Lady Whistledown" has been a continuing connective plot thread. We got to know, somewhat too early in the series, who the Lady was, but now someone else has taken over the role, unbeknown to the original writer who has given the sheet up. I find myself quite engaged in the mystery. Bridgerton has won me over: just don't confuse it with history.

So, Wonder Man was not what I expected (but still good)

This could prove to be a tricky post to write. While I really liked Wonder Man, it's not the kind of series I usually have that much to say about. Though under the Marvel umbrella, it's not really that nerdy, but more of a straightforward drama about friendship. And that was what was surprising about it.

Not the lack of nerdiness, mind you. The marketing of this series made it clear that there would not be much superheroing going on, although one of the protagonists has superpowers. However, I did get the impression that the show would be a light-hearted comedy. I thought the setup of an art-house director taking on a superhero movie would be much more central to the plot than it was, and a source for friendly Hollywood satire and meta-humour.

And it is, up to a point. But the focus is on the friendship developing between Simon Williams, a young, serious American actor who has yet to catch a break, and Trevor Slattery, a has-been, cheerfully immoral British actor whose comeback is hampered by the fact that in the past he posed as a terrorist called The Mandarin.

Simon is losing gigs by over-analyzing his bit-parts, when he hears about a remake of an old cheesy superhero classic called Wonder Man. The old film has personal significance to him, and he feels he just has to get the starring role. The problem is, not only is he difficult to work with, he's also hiding his superpowers (which basically consist of blowing stuff up with ionic whatsits while remaining unscathed) as superpowered actors are more or less banned in Hollywood. Trevor, on the other hand, has been arrested for his past misdeeds by a policing agency (especially interested in superpowered people) called the DODC. He strikes a deal with them to get close to and dig out the dirt on Simon, who's already under suspicion. Only then, of course, he warms to Simon and no longer wants to sell him out.

Simon and Trevor becoming real friends is a given, but not the way it's depicted. I've always has a lot of time for Trevor (he also appeared in Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), played with enjoyable lightness of touch by the Grand Old Man of drama Ben Kingsley. What I hadn't banked was that I'd care so much for Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's troubled Simon. The power dynamic between the two actors is different from what I'd imagined it would be. In his previous appearances, Trevor Slattery was the comic relief, and the protagonists more or less rolled their eyes at him. Simon, though, looks up to him as a mentor and quickly realises what a good actor he is. Trevor ends up with the upper hand, and zero idea of what to do with it.

As someone stage-struck since childhood, I especially liked the acting-related parts of the plot – like Simon and Trevor bonding over favourite passages in plays (and films?), or art-house director Von Kovak's putting actors vying for the roles of Wonder Man and his sidekick Barnaby through barmy-seeming improv exercises. The improv brings forth some great acting from the hopefuls, and when Simon tries to fob Von Kovak off with something already scripted he calls him out immediately ("that was a scene from Pretty Woman"). Von Kovak's no fool. 

The acting shenanigans are only part of it, though. I did not expect this series to lean so heavily into drama as it did. I caught myself thinking that if it hadn't been branded Marvel, I'd probably have thought it Too Serious for Me and not given it a chance. There's an episode where Simon attends his Haitian-born mother's birthday with Trevor in tow, and you realise what an outsider he has been most of his life, what with the neighbours barely making an effort to be civil and Simon's punchable successful brother showing his displeasure with the prodigal (Ma Williams stands by her boy, though). A self-contained episode shows the horrific incident involving DeMarr "Doorman" Davis which led to the Hollywood ban on superpowered people. Though it has its funny moments, the episode is mostly gut-wrenching as it shows the tragic rise and fall of a decent man who didn't even want to be famous.

Is it a little dishonest to float a show like this under the Marvel banner when it's so different from what you connect with Marvel (not just when it comes to superheroing but also fun and games)? Maybe, but as long as a show is good I don't think it has to excuse itself, and Wonder Man is good. I'm guessing it's thanks to the Marvel connection that the ending is as satisfying as it is instead of ultra-bleak, as it could very well have been in a different context. Simon, Trevor and their friendship will pull through – but the same can probably not be said for "Doorman" Davis.

The Night Manager season two: the good, the bad and the boring

Of the shows I've watched on Amazon Prime recently, there was one where one of the heroes made a passionate case against the unchecked proliferation of weapons and was willing to risk his life to stop it, though you could also see the point of his emotionally damaged antagonist. And then there was The Night Manager season two. 

Yes, Jonathan Pine is back, and I'm sorry to say as personality-less as ever. Over the years, when I've reread my first blog post about The Night Manager, I've felt guilty about my cattiness regarding Tom Hiddleston in the role. What did I mean when I called him "not conventionally handsome"? He is too! There's nothing wrong at all with the spacing of his eyes. Just look what an absolute dish he is as Loki in numerous Marvel films. What was I thinking?

The second season of The Night Manager comforts me a little, as it reminds me what a yawn-inducing cipher Pine is. The role settles itself over Hiddleston like a wet blanket, dousing all mischievous Loki charm. Pine doesn't even have a sense of humour; he just spends the whole series looking anxious. At least he's not all bronzed and beefcaked this time around, so he looks all right, from my point of view. Oh, and at the start of the season, we see that he has a cat called Corky (of whom he seems fond – the cat, that is, not his season one murder victim). With that, I've run out of nice things to say about the character. Better luck in Doomsday, Tom.

Why this neglect of proper character development for the hero? I suspect the head writer of the series, David Farr, is a bit of a villain-lover. He certainly invests more vim into depicting the baddies: although by no means complex, they are a lot more colourful than Pine and his allies. It's funny, because I didn't get this feeling from the first season, which had a certain tone of moral outrage. Now, although the villain plan is so evil you just have to root for Pine & Co regardless, the slight disdain towards the rich, privileged and criminal is replaced by shameless fascination. Pine seemed perfectly fine shrugging off Richard Roper and his fate at the end of season one. In season two, ten years later, he's still obsessed by Roper and his legacy, and so is the series.

It's hard to review season two of The Night Manager without spoilers (English newspapers didn't even try, so I got the main twist spoiled and was miffed, although it was rather an obvious one). Anyway, the  setup is that Pine once again has to go undercover after he gets wind of the dealings of Teddy Dos Santos, who calls himself "Roper's true heir". Dos Santos is also into illegal arms dealing, in spite of having his HQ in Colombia, where you'd have thought it would be tempting to get into other kinds of shady trades. I don't quite understand why they made the Night Manager baddies arms dealers. Wouldn't drugs be more boo-hissable? Or is this just my Swedish bias?

At the start, I thought I'd like season two more than the sluggishly paced first season. The thriller elements worked well, and Diego Calva's Dos Santos was a charming villain. He had lots more chemistry with Hiddleston's Pine than Pine's potential love interest, sultry Roxana (Camila Morrone), and single-handedly provided most of it. It soon becomes clear that Dos Santos is merely a pawn and not the Big Bad (of course not, he's way too cute). After That Twist at the end of episode three, there are still many enjoyable scenes and nail-biting sequences, but there's no denying the plot's bizarre. One of the protagonists from the first season has to act completely out of character for it all to happen.

Still, if you see it as entertaining, high-octane thriller nonsense with no pretensions to hard-hitting realism, season two of The Night Manager is a good time – up until the highly disappointing ending. I know there's a season three in the works, but really, what was that? I'm not sure how a third season will be able to salvage the whole, to be honest. Though I'll watch it, naturally. I need to know what happened to Corky the cat.

The show I alluded to in the first paragraph? The Legend of Vox Machina, animated, R-rated fantasy inspired by a game I've never played. And yet, it has considerably more complex and likeable characters than a supposedly high-prestige BBC drama like The Night Manager. That's the way of the world.

Chibnall does Christie – and it could have been worse

"From the creator of Broadchurch", an ad boasted, and my heart sank. When I nominated Seven Dials on Netflix as one of the 2026 shows I was looking forward to, I had no idea that the script-writer would be none other than Chris Chibnall, the inventor of The Timeless Child and the bane of Gallifrey.

I had a lot of problems with Chibnall's run as Doctor Who showrunner, which wasn't unexpected, as I didn't care for the Who episodes he penned during the reigns of his predecessors Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat either. Now, however, after RTD has botched his return to the show so badly, I've started wondering whether I judged Chibs too harshly. There were parts of his Doctor Who run I liked, such as the Flux series and The Power of the Doctor. Consequently, I was prepared to give his version of The Mystery of the Seven Dials (simply called Seven Dials on Netflix) a fair chance – or fairish at any rate.

In the end, Seven Dials turned out to be a solid good watch. Chibnall proved to be a better Christie adapter than Sarah Phelps, just as his Doctor Who run (with hindsight) can be said to be better than the RTD 2/Disney Plus era. The problem is, that's not saying an awful lot. I was grateful Chibnall didn't mess around more with the source material than he did, but there were still lots of moments when I had reason to recall why his Who scripts irritated me in the first place.

The basic plot is more or less the same as in Christie's novel, and her twists are intact. Chibnall has added one twist of his own, but I didn't think it detracted from the original story. Other tweaks of the plot were pardonable too. I don't quite understand why Bundle had to be in love with the first murder victim – it causes her to mooch around a great deal during the whole first episode – but I didn't mind it much. Gender-swapping Lord Caterham to an almost equally unlikeable Lady Caterham worked quite well, especially as she's played by Helena Bonham Carter. Mandatory diversity is built into the plot by making Ronnie Devereux of Indian descent and the brilliant researcher from Cameroon rather than Germany, but if we have to play the diversity game I much prefer these kinds of changes to "colour-blind" casting.

What is less easy to bear are the outbreaks of clumsy commentary, as if Chibnall just had to leave his 21th-century fingerprints everywhere. Sir Oswald Coote lunges into a Brash Capitalist rant about how class can be bought at one time, for no good reason that I can see. A whole scene is dedicated to showing how harsh Lady Coote has been to a maid. Lady Coote in the book was a good-natured creature who was bullied by the Caterhams' gardener, but I accept that making her sharper adds her to the roster of likely suspects, which is no bad thing. However, she doesn't have to turn into a servant terroriser. Lady Caterham's snobbishness is very on the nose, and the Cameroonian scientist makes a whole little speech about how he and others on the African continent had to fight at the behest of "European white men" which sounds a great deal more 2020s rather than 1920s.

It's not as if Chibnall has that good a grasp of the period he apparently feels superior to. When George Lomax laments the lack of political interest of young women, Bundle replies sweetly "gives us the vote and we just might [take an interest]", whereupon Lomax guffaws patronisingly. It's true that Bundle wouldn't have had the vote in 1925, but married women of 30 and over already had the right to vote since 1918, so the idea of extending this right further wouldn't have felt far-fetched even for Lomax. Lady Caterham tells Bundle that Bundle's brother died because of the mistakes of a "drunken old general". The High Command during World War One hasn't had the best press, but that is surely an oversimplified view of what went down. Officers trained in traditional warfare were ill-equipped to make tactical decisions in the first truly modern war; I would argue that their age and state of inebriation didn't have much to do with it.

But enough complaining. Chibnall may not be able to refrain completely from Chibnallisms, but compared to some of the pontificating we've had from other script-writers, and the right-out distortions of the source material we got from Phelps, they are simply mild annoyances. The best thing about this adaptation is not the script but the stellar casting. Mia McKenna-Bruce is spot-on as Bundle (though Chibnall should have given her a better grasp of grammar). Helena Bonham Carter is fun, as always. Martin Freeman makes a surprisingly convincing Battle, and his first confrontation with McKenna-Bruce's Bundle adds a welcome sparkle to the proceedings. Edward Bluemel is excellent as Jimmy Thesiger, and Alexander Macqueen is genuinely funny as Lomax. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Mark Lewis Jones's Sir Oswald Coote, especially not if he was carrying his rifle and you were an aristo.

It's a shame that a few things are dragged out or added unnecessarily, while other aspects of the plot which were important in the book – Bill Eversleigh's feeling for Bundle, the efficiency of Pongo – get very little room. But all in all, this isn't a bad Seven Dials version. If Chibnall chooses to do a sequel of some kind (maybe adapting The Secret of Chimneys, though that would be reversing the original chronological order of the novels), I'm here for it. 

Apologies to Nora Roberts

A good while back (in 2017, which is a horrifying nine years ago) I was pretty harsh on Nora Roberts, on the basis on The Next Always which I tried to read and then gave up on. I owe her an apology, because since then I've enjoyed plenty of her novels – but as audiobooks, not as paperbacks.

Roberts is a good example of the differences between an audiobook and a paper novel. Things you like listening to would not necessarily thrill you as reading matter, and vice versa. The typical Nora Roberts novel is, in my view, ideal for the audiobook medium. I had an especially good time with her latest Lost Bride trilogy: Inheritance, The Mirror and The Seven Rings. The plot in brief: Sonya, a feisty web designer who's just thrown out her cheating fiancé and quit her job, inherits a lovely Maine mansion from an unknown uncle. It is full of friendly ghosts, plus one hostile one. Sonya has to figure out how to break a curse in order to help the friendly ghosts to move on, as clues are conveniently drip-fed to her.

Plot-wise, the whole story could easily be condensed into one volume. But as an audiobook listener, I appreciated the hanging-out-with-characters scenes which annoyed me in The Next Always. I wallowed in the cosiness of it all while I did my chores and Sonya, her best friend Cleo and their respective love interests cooked and ate good food, went for outings, acquired charming pets, interacted with the friendly ghosts (that was my favourite part) and were successful at their jobs. 

Would all this have bored me had I read it? Possibly. The Lost Bride trilogy did not try to interest me in the minutiae of renovating a hotel or helping a kid in the bathroom, so I think I would have liked it more than The Next Always even on paper. What I am sure of is that I got more enjoyment from the trilogy as listening matter than I would have got in book form.

When I read, I like the story to have some momentum and not get too stuck in one particular place, however appealing that place may be. In an audiobook, on the other hand, I don't mind dwelling for a little longer than necessary story-wise in a pleasant fictional world. So the attractive settings and friendly banter of Roberts's novels work very well. The sex scenes are a bit of a trial for me, as I don't much care for the Rugged Hero type that Roberts's heroines fancy, but that's a minor quibble.

Conversely, there are gripping reads that work less well as audiobooks. If a novel has a huge cast of characters, for instance, it's a disadvantage for an audiobook as you can't just flip back the pages to remind yourself who X was, then easily find where you were again. If an author has a certain style you're particularly partial to, it can fly by you too easily while you're distracted by making the bed or cleaning the kitchen. For this reason, I only occasionally listen to my downloaded audiobook version of A Tale of Two Cities, although it is very nicely read by Martin Jarvis. It would be interesting to find out if P.G. Wodehouse works in the audiobook medium or not: I suspect not, but I could be wrong.

So, sorry, Nora, for not finding the best way to enjoy your novels sooner. If I can find something equally feel-good in paper form as Blue Dahlia (the Roberts novel I'm currently listening to) to get me through January, I'll be very lucky.