Clare Sambrook

I can't say I was very impressed with this one. I just couldn't connect that well with it. It started out amazingly, and some parts were intense and tear-jerking, but a lot of it was nonsense. It's told through the eyes of a young boy named Harry, whose younger brother goes missing. It was a moving story, but it wasn't told very well. I didn't know what was happening at parts- there was so many characters, and we're never told who half of them actually were. I liked the story, and I liked Harry, but there was no structure in the book whatsoever.… (més)

I really liked this, though it's really quite disturbing. The background of the story is that a child goes missing, but the story is told from the point of view of a nine year old boy. Reading it while the Madeleine McCann case was in the news (a coincidence that I only realised after I started reading it btw - I've had it out of the library for a while and if I'd thought a bit rather than just picking up the next book in the pile I might not have read it) made it seem a bit odd, and kind of unrealistic too. But you have to remember that a nine year old narrator isn't omniscient.… (més)

I read 'Hide and Seek' after meeting Clare Sambrook at a Society of Authors talk. I was engaged by the book and its central character Harry Pickles, through whom the story is told. As a writer who has tried to capture the voice of a nine-year-old child to tell a coherent story, I know just how difficult it is. I don't think I always managed it in my short stories, and I don't think Clare does entirely either, but she gets very close - the misses are not so distracting as to break off the engagement. I would recommend the book, but only for readers who are not looking for happy ever after.… (més)