Generic questions were uppermost in AnsteySpraggan's mind when she began reading Harriet Lane's debut novel, Alys, Always. "I deliberated on whether to read this book for two reasons. Firstly, the title made me think it might be a gooey love story when, in fact, it's very far from that," she writes.
The second is that several reviews that I've read of Alys, Always refer to it as a thriller. I saw Lane's book more as a story of human nature red in tooth and claw (with the intricacies of the human condition revealed with an exceptional candour) and as shrewd assessment of life in a society that stills fails to be classless.
In the end, she concluded - with a shiver of self-recognition - it was a cautionary tale about how easy it is for a clever woman to manipulate shallow and impressionable people.
Lane's background is as a journalist, but with a nice writerly flourish of her own, AnsteySpraggan suggests that, "When she describes a 'guest soap' in Frances' mother's house as being 'as tiny and pearly pink as prawn dim sum', you know that non-fiction is behind her and a career as a novelist has well and truly begun." Praise indeed.
Alastairsavage, meanwhile, revisited one of Arthur Conan Doyle's lesser known Sherlock Holmes stories. Why, one might wonder, is it lesser-known when it displays so many classic Holmesian qualities? It might have something to do with its out-dated attitudes.
The worst part of The Sign of Four is the crude portrayal of Tonga, a character from the Andaman Islands. The shocking depiction of him and his people tells us less about them, and much more about late Victorian attitudes to the nations that they had subjugated.
Our search for the 10th title for this year's Guardian First Book Prize shortlist, meanwhile, is coming along nicely, with new verdicts this week on Eowyn Ivey's novel The Snow Child and Sarah Jackson's poetry collection Pelt. Read, enjoy, and join in.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed this week; if I've mentioned you here, drop me a line at claire.armitstead@guardian.co.uk and we'll send you something pink and pearly (not!) from the cupboards.
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