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Friday 30 January 2015

The Glory by Lauren St John


Oh my goodness, I love Lauren St John's writing so much. I've been a huge fan since her White Giraffe series (**newsflash** there will be a new title in that series 'Operation Rhino' due out August 2015) , which was then followed by the brilliant Laura Marlin series, then the excellent One Dollar Horse series, and now there is this 'The Glory'. All I can say is that her writing is as superb as ever. I read this book in a day, it was so engrossing. Lauren has this excellent ability of describing places in such beautiful detail that you want to get straight on a plane to visit it. This happened after I'd read 'Rendezvous in Russia'. I'd always wanted to go to Russia, and after reading this I said to my daughter 'Right, we're off'. We visited St Petersburg and I was just so excited I didn't care that it rained the whole week, and I didn't care that I had to spend a week's wages to buy a ballet ticket - it was all worth it. It was beautiful.

So, now Colorado is my next port of call. I followed the trail of The Glory (a fictional month-long, 1200 mile horse and rider endurance race, with a $250,000 prize) in one of my guidebooks on the USA, and the places just sound amazing. I want to to go horseriding, I want to buy a cowboy hat, I want to go to that cafe in Boulder, I want to experience the spectacular scenery and surroundings, I want to camp out under the stars (without the rattlesnakes).

Thank you Lauren for enriching my literary and travelling life!