Page 18 - Phonebox Magazine September 2016

Book Review
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
HDebbie Taylor
arry Potter; to some it is just a kids book, to others it’s a celebration of a life full of charm and magic. So the latest incarnation as a play has
the fans in a frenzy. The play itself is attracting brilliant reviews and now everyone can read about what has happened to Harry, Ron and Hermione nineteen years after the Great Battle of Hogwarts.
Firstly, I am not going to spoil anything for those waiting to see the play or haven’t read the book yet. Secondly, this is written as a play, stage directions and all, so is not a novel. We join Harry when he has been married to Ginny(Weasley) for some time as they have three children, James, Albus and Lily. The rst scene sees the family at Kings Cross, as Albus is off to Hogwarts for the rst time. His older brother, James is already there, and we can see that Albus is having problems with being the son of the ‘famous’ Harry Potter and going to Hogwarts is the next stage of this awkwardness. As Harry did on his rst trip to Hogwarts, Albus meets the person who will turn out to be his best friend, Scorpious Malfoy, son of Draco.
The story is fast paced, once these new,
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Easy Prey by Douglas Watkinson
UThelma Shacklady
nusual in that it is published by a self-publishing company, sometimes referred to as ‘vanity publishing’, ‘Easy Prey’ is a
fascinating, well-written detective novel, second in a series about private detective and former police of cer, Nathan Hawk.
Teresa Stillman, who had made a study of Japanese gardens, was given her rst commission by Mary Harper, a landscape gardener. She had been asked to create a Japanese garden for Yoshie Carter, an elderly lady who wanted a living reminder of her birthplace created in her English home on the outskirts of Oxford. Since the gardener had no knowledge of this style of garden, she had turned to Teresa, via her University tutor, for advice. Even when the garden was nished, Teresa felt unable to
but kind of familiar, characters have been introduced and the scene is completed by explaining where the familiar characters are within the world of magic that we have read about before. The plot revolves around a well known event in the Harry Potter world and one which changes the course of Harry’s life. The junior characters time travel to try and change things in the established time line.
Plot lines become dark and entwined with older storylines, bringing in the best known personalities from Harry’s past. For those of us that have not been lucky enough to get tickets for the stage play, we wonder at how this would all work on a stage. The production will have to be very clever with the changing scenes and the visual effects to pull this off. Overall, the story is a good one, dark and emotional, it has the hallmarks of JKRowlings feelings about Harry, it draws you back into his feelings of loss and isolation, both into the character of Harry and his son. However,there is the smattering of great funny lines that made the lms funny and charming.
It is fascinating to see how Rowling has seen the lives of her three main characters have developed since the end of the last book.
But this is about new characters, Albus and Scorpious aren’t quite as engaging as their parents, but they were developed over the course of seven books. Rowling has said this is the last chapter she will write about Harry Potter, but she has said that before, hopefully we may get more about Albus,his friends and his siblings to allow them more room to breathe.
This is an interesting way to up date this well loved series of novels, another glimpse into this interesting magical world. Once you get past the idea of reading a play, the plot plays well and moves along with pace. The older characters feel much more real than the other younger characters, mainly because we know them better. The play stretches over ve hours, reading it takes a lot less time, but for me it feels like the start of something interesting and fun, which will engage another generation.
leave, lingering at the end of each day to enjoy its beauty. But then she is offered a second opportunity to create, when Richard Crane made contact with her as she spent time with her father, former barrister John Stillman. Crane had seen Yoshie’s garden and wanted something similar himself. However, before she can pursue this commission, she disappears.
It is at this point the reader is introduced to Nathan Hawk, father of four, returning from Los Angeles with his youngest daughter, Ellie. He receives a letter from Teresa’s father asking him to investigate her disappearance and to find her, something he had been good at when in the police force. Although convinced that Teresa must be dead, Hawk agrees to search for her, partly because of fellow-feeling, having a rather wayward
daughter of his own. So begins a fascinating and convoluted plot, leading to an unexpected denouement.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and was interested to see that the author has been a script editor for the BBC and also scripted several plays. This is his second novel.
18 Phonebox Magazine | September 2016