Two five star reviews! Longbourn's Songbird & The Flight Attendant. Two very different genres too.

The two books which I am reviewing could not be more different from each other!

Longbourn's Songbird takes our usual P&P characters and imbues them with stronger characteristics of the originals which makes them literally very challenging. The setting in America in 1948 is till very Victorian. There are distinct standards of behavior for young ladies and though the Bennetts are a bit more modern than most, they still live in a society where "what people would say" seems important.

Elizabeth and Jane are the main characters of the story with Bingley and Darcy both following suit. However Charlotte Lucas role becomes a rather interesting one and Anne de Bourgh and Lady Catherine are strangely rather impoverished here. The relationships which develop between Anne and Charlotte would have scandalized Jane Austen society but here it happily ends well.

I liked the role that Elizabeth played. Feisty still but daring and very caring of Darcy. Darcy in turn was very well put in this story and the whole story was extremely balanced keeping the main story of P&P but adding a very unusual twist to the story.

I had to read this in one go and would give it five stars because of this!

Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of  Beau North.

The beauty of this story is that we have a character that I did not really like on several accounts. However the author weaves a story that we cannot put down. You've got to know how this is going to turn out and I felt that Cassandra got off lightly despite all her un-likeable ways!

Cassandra worked for an airline, was a binge drinker, picked up men both from the flights and random men from hotel bars. She "blacked" out many times whilst on these binge spells but does not seem to have learnt the danger she was in till she one day gets up in Dubai with a dead man beside her. She has no clue whether she murdered him herself but then rationalizes that she wouldn't have! and then begins the cover up and the story behind the murder.

Though the plot was convoluted and crossed several countries and nationalities, the main event was Cassandra and boy was she a character.

As usual the author keeps you on edge throughout. All his books are different and do not expect the usual.

Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review courtesy of Doubleday Books.