Winning reviews

The winners of the One Book for Stevenage review competition were invited to the Mayor’s parlour to receive their prizes.

The four winners represented a wide range of ages and abilities but their book reviews all impressed the judges. They gave an excellent description of Lian Hearn’s Across the Nightingale Floor but more importantly let us know what they thought about the book and how it made them feel.

Erika Cárdenas won the first prize of a digital radio, kindly donated by Pure Digital. Erika’s first language is Spanish so she faced an additional challenge when reading this book. She recommended Across the Nightingale Floor as a “magic, romantic, gracious and gripping book to read.”  At the award ceremony she thanked the council for giving her the opportunity to meet this challenge and commented “you never know what you have inside until you try.”

Two winners won £50 worth of Ottakers book tokens each. Archie Squires, 14, who attends Marriotts School, began his enthusiastic review with “This is the best book I have ever read. It has suspense, drama, action, romance to name but a few, but above all this it has a mystical quality.”  He has read Lian Hearn’s entire trilogy and is looking forward to her new book.

Sarah Page also picked up her book tokens and said “I used to read a lot when I was younger but now I’m a mum I don’t get the time. One Book for Stevenage encouraged me to take the time to read and introduced me to the kind of book I would not normally pick up. It’s an excellent scheme.”

Alan Raxworthy was the proud winner of Lian Hearn’s trilogy, signed by the author herself. He described Across the Nightingale Floor as “A novel that any reader of adventure will find spellbinding…a tale of feudalism, intrigue and treachery.”

Stevenage Mayor Councillor Brian Underwood said: “The standard of all the reviews that we received was very high and I was delighted to present the four winners with their prizes. This competition has confirmed that One Book for Stevenage has been successful in its campaign to get people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities in the town reading and enjoying the same book.”

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