Well, it’s back to work for and I already feel like I’m back on the treadmill.

No more lofty ideals or deep contemplation, it’s all about keeping my head above water and meeting deadlines and targets.

Despite this I am reading two books, well three as I still haven’t finished Keeping Faith. I have just read Eoin Colfer’s first book in the Artemis Fowl series and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I managed to read it in a few days, where I am slowly working through Kate Forsyth’s The Beast’s Garden.

What made Colfer’s book a more enjoyable read?

The Beasts Garden is set in Berlin during WWII and the story line is based on the fairytale of Beauty and the Beast. Fairy tales are ‘telling’ and so is this book’s style rather than showing. In comparison to Colfer’s book I haven’t really become emotionally connected to any of the characters. There’s a lot of research that has gone into writing the book and it reads like an historical text at the cost of the story telling and the development of the characters.

Where Colfer’s book is obviously a fairy tale, however, you feel emotionally invested in the characters, he has taken us into the lives of the characters through their emotions, what they see, hear, smell and what they say putting the reader genuinely in the story.

So the moral for the week, show don’t tell, but make it meaningful.

After saying all that, there is a lot of telling in this chapter as Ellie begins to question herself and so do those around her.