THE SOMNAMBULIST was heaped with praise and tipped to be an excellent TV series with 'great strong female roles,' that 'any actress would be grateful to play.'
TV Book Club has a prime time slot on one of the UK's main television stations, and aims to showcase brilliant fiction as 'Best Reads' of 2012. One of ten shortlisted books, THE SOMNAMBULIST features alongside 'Before I Go To Sleep' by SJ Watson, 'The Sisters Brothers' by Patrick DeWitt and 'Into The Darkest Corner' by Elizabeth Haynes - for a full list of all selected titles, click here.
Funded by Specsavers, the ten-part series sees a celebrity panel that includes Meera Syal, Dave Spikey and Laila Rouass, critiquing a new title each week. For the first time ever, viewers are invited to interact with the show, reading along with them and sending in their own reviews. Actress Sue Johnston was a special guest on this week's episode and had nothing but praise for THE SOMNAMBULIST: 'It would make a wonderful TV series - a very dark Downton Abbey. The locations are brilliant, the characters are very rich. It draws you in...There are great strong female roles. Any actress would be grateful to play them.'
Click here for a link to TV Book Club's interview with Essie Fox.
THE SOMNAMBULIST is published in the UK by Orion, Castelvecchi in Italy and Damm in Sweden.
Praise from other panellists:
'I loved the sense of place and atmosphere...full of twists and turns...it's plotted really well. [Essie Fox] has managed to capture a fantastic period in British history. Very evocative - it's brilliantly researched and very, very clever. Her descriptions are beautiful and vivid and full of colour and depth.' -- Meera Syal
'I really enjoyed it - there were some great plot twists and turns.' -- Dave Spikey
'A page turner - it kept me there...every character has a richness and depth to them.' -- Laila Rouass
Reader reviews:
'I could almost smell it, the descriptions were so good'
'So atmospheric, an easy read... But also more than that ... A 5 star read.'
More praise for THE SOMNAMBULIST:
'This is a gutsy page-turning novel with a delightful heroine...larger than life Dickensian characters and generous supply of plot twists and turns. But it is no pastiche. It is an affectionate and knowledgeable homage to the genre and a thumping good read.' -- Sally Zigmond, Historical Novels Review
'Vividly compelling, dark and dazzling.' -- Katherine Webb
'Finishing THE SOMNAMBULIST feels like coming back (somewhat regretfully) from time-travelling to Victoria's England. Essie Fox's descriptions of places are just wonderful. This writer has the neat knack of recapturing the mystical eccentricity of Victorian time and place without caricaturing it. I was totally drawn in...A beautiful reading experience! I look forward to the next book from this writer.' -- Michelle Lovric, author of THE BOOK OF HUMAN SKIN
'Wonderful debut...well written - lively and believable characters...I found this book difficult to put down and look forward to more from this very promising author.' -- Yorkshire Gazette and Herald