This is a very pretty book but it has - not exactly annoyed me, but it's not to my mind pretty enough to warrant the £9.99 price tag, and there isn't enough story to justify it either. It is not a good sign when an explanation of what you've just read takes almost as long as the story it explains, non of which is a reflection on Clarke's writing which is as perfectly crafted as ever.
Victoria Sawdon's illustrations are charming enough but you'd have to like them a lot more than I do to buy the book for them (my copy is a review one from Bloomsbury, which I'll pass on to a hopefully more enthusiastic colleague). I liked 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' but (ironically given how short this is) thought it was over long - The Woods at Midwinter is imagined in the same world, it is very much for fans of both Clarke and 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'.
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This would have worked beautifully as an add on in an exclusive edition, and as it stands will probably find itself in any number of Christmas stockings (or equivalent, we're a stocking family for this kind of thing), there will be people who love it, are entranced by the images, and feel very happy with their purchase, but I'm in a full on Scrooge mood with this one to the point that I've deleted several mean spirited sentences, but in the end I can't even bring myself to really be down on the publisher for producing it. What I do know is that it's bothered me enough to write this to get it off my chest.
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