My Review of "The Drosten's Curse"

A.L. Kennedy's The Drosten's Curse is not a Doctor Who novel I expected to enjoy. I came to Doctor Who through the more recent regenerations, so returning to one of the classic Doctors -- in this case, the Fourth -- wasn't something I expected to enjoy. But A.L. Kennedy has really captured the Doctor at his best.

The Doctor is always whimsical, but the Fourth Doctor, especially at the tip of Kennedy's pen, is even more so. The Time Lord that I've come to love is eccentric and sometimes even disjointed in the most charming of ways -- and Kennedy has given us all that and more in The Drosten's Curse.

The story, as my husband informs me, is an expansion of an older short story written by Kennedy, about an ancient alien being that's causing all manner of disturbances on a golf course/spa hotel in Arbroath. It's stirring up enough of a ruckus to attract the attention of the TARDIS and the Doctor, and he recruits an employee of the spa/hotel -- Bryony -- to help him investigate. The Drosten's Curse may not quite an all-new adventure, but as far as I can tell, it does go into more detail than any short story might ever do.

I came to this book with a fresh perspective. All the Doctor Who novels I've read have been recent regenerations -- well, actually only the last two. And I've never read anything else written by Kennedy (who, my husband informs me, is well known in the sci-fi circles). I've only ever seen a handful of Fourth Doctor episodes -- and those only because my husband insisted we watch them. I'm a new Whovian by any measure. But this was a wonderful book, and any Whovian will love it.

I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

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The Mrs. & the Minister

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