Books you should read: Brenda and Effie

I first got into Paul Magrs writing when I read his Doctor Who novel Verdigris. What I really liked about the book is how he captured everything about the Third Doctor era of Doctor Who on television as well as the feel of the 1970's. I could just imagine the fun tatty sets and gloriously over-the-top villains.

I was also very pleased to get to know Paul Magrs through many of the online networking site and do a little book swap.

This brings me to a series of books he has written featuring a pair of characters by the name of Brenda and Effie. I had just finished reading the first book in the series Never the Bride about a month or so ago and now I'm onto the second book Something Borrowed.

I have to say this is probably the best new series I have gotten into for some time now. The first thing I like is Paul makes the lead characters a pair of older women rather than a couple of young girls going on these rather otherworldly adventures.

As a matter of fact Brenda is quite a bite older than most and had a very long and checkered past before she decided to settle down and run her little bed and breakfast in Whitby and finally live a quiet life...

...or so she thought as she and her friend Effie seem to be dragged from one strange adventure to the next.

There are so many things I love about the first novel alone. The first being how Paul Magrs has broken each chapter in the book to read like a separate television episode. The other is how he has taken the best bits of classic science-fiction literature, the Universal Monster Movies of the 30's and 40's and reintroduces them in a very fun and unique way by blending them with a humor quite reminiscent of writers like Evelyn Waugh and Stephen Fry.

The way the characters talk in the book are so much fun to read.

I highly recommend you pick up Never the Bride, Something Borrowed, Conjugal Rites and the recently released Hells Belles on Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com!! You will not be disappointed!!

I should also mention that Paul has also has a series of Doctor Who audio plays out called the Hornets' Nest which star none other than Tom Baker as the Doctor. These plays are great for people who are fans of Doctor Who or Tom Baker. As well as people who are fans of the old Sherlock Holmes radio drama's starring Basil Rathbone. These plays read very much like those radio drama's.

Speaking of the nocturnal dandy Sherlock Holmes, Paul was very kind to write a great introduction for my upcoming graphic novel Sherlock Holmes: The Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner.