This review was posted on 4th November 2013, and I’m reposting it in honour of Jo Walton, whose writing and book covers I’m celebrating today. Here are my thoughts about the first book of hers that I encountered… She continues to be one of my favourite authors. Tooth and Claw won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2004.
BLURB: A tale of love, money, and family conflict – among Dragons.
A family deals with the death of their father.
A son goes to court for his inheritance.
Another son agonises over his father’s deathbed confession.
One daughter becomes involved in the abolition movement, while another sacrifices herself for her husband.
And everyone in the tale is a dragon, red in tooth and claw. Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses… in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which the great and the good avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby. You have never read a novel like Tooth and Claw.
REVIEW: If you thoroughly enjoy Fantasy, particularly depictions of dragons along the lines of Anne McCaffrey and Robin Hobbs – but also like Victorian novels, especially those by Anthony Trollope, then Tooth and Claw is sheer delight. It could so easily been a tale of offbeat whimsy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But Walton has given us a few extra twists. Dragons in her world are obsessed with social position in a strictly hierarchical society. But, in order to ‘get on’, you need to be able to defend your position. With force. So females need protection as they don’t possess claws or breathe fire, like large, powerful males. And it is all about size. Dragons are constantly comparing their size – and will devour sickly children, elderly servants that have outlived their usefulness, and the bodies of their parents. For nothing nourishes and increases a dragon’s size like dragon flesh. So servants – who have bound wings to stop them flying off and escaping – rarely grow beyond seven or eight feet long because they simply don’t have access to dragon flesh.
Another interesting kink in this tale, is that female dragons are carefully protected because if they get too close to a male, they turn a bridal pink. If the proprieties have all been observed, this is fine – but if a male manages to corner a young female against her will and she flushes pink, she is ruined if he doesn’t marry her. So we have an interesting parallel with the Victorian obsession of keeping unmarried girls pure – and how fragile their reputations are if they encounter an unscrupulous male.
There is also a fascinating sub-plot about religion, where a more socially acceptable version has superseded an older and a more troubling account of how dragonkind managed to prevail against a race that sounds uncannily like humans. Pockets of high-born dragons still worship the older sect, but have to do so in secret and risk social disgrace, even though theoretically, there is no religious discrimination… It’s all very well done.
By adopting the viewpoint of the omniscient narrator, and providing details of each character’s social class and standing, Walton manages to give us the same cosy feel-good atmosphere we get from Austen and Trollope’s books. Which reads very enjoyably when set against the inevitable explosions of visceral violence that underpins dragon society…
Of course, Walton is not just discussing dragon priorities – Trollope’s books are all about power and ambition. Who has it, who wants it and how far they are prepared to go to achieve it. And how the romantic heroine will cope in a world where her appearance and wit are all she has to offer, when respectable employment is out of the question. Walton could have so very easily made a real mess of this conceit – but in handling all her characters with such humour and adroitness, she presents us with another mirror to our own natures – one red in tooth and claw.
10/10
This edition was produced by Boomsbury Publishing UK in April 2018. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the warm colours that reference the Greek art on ancient pottery and the beautiful title font running from top to bottom of the urn, giving it a strikingly different look. And those flowers with the shading and beautiful detail… I think this is one of my all-time favourite covers and it was this design that prompted me to buy this one. I’m so glad I did… 
Published in April 2018 by Little, Brown and Company, this is also a wonderfully striking effort. That Grecian face staring out at us, both imperious and slightly sad, draws our gaze. Once again, the warm orange and black colour scheme is both attractive and references Greek artefacts, as does the border detailing. I also like the title font, which works well. However, I do think it’s a shame to clutter this lovely design with unnecessary chatter, compromising the look and feel of the cover. 
This edition, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in April 2019, is another wonderful design, given it’s a pared-down, less luscious version of the first cover. Once again, the colour scheme just sings out – and I love the Grecian urn with that lovely raised title font. It would look even more stunning if we didn’t, have that wonderful jar-shaped space stuffed with a load of pointless chatter, which despoils this cover more than any of the others, I think. I also love the background, directly referencing some of the ancient Greek figures depicted on artefacts. 
This edition, produced by Pocket in May 2019, is another fabulous effort. A wonderful, subtle design that has stolen my heart. And NO annoying chatter to compromise and detract from the intended visual impact – and doesn’t it just look so much better for it? Not that I’m ranting. At all. Nope. This was so very nearly my favourite…
This French edition, published by Rue Fromentin in May 2018, is a bit different from the rest – for starters, it has broken away from the orange and black colour scheme. I love the soft-focus figure offering up a charger, presumably to a god. Though I’m guessing it wouldn’t be Zeus… It’s a beautiful image, the shape of the woman and colouring working well in making this a cover full of mystery. So this is my freebie selection – which is your favourite?
Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999 — and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it — fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.
employed by the DFZ to sort through the mountains of magical junk people leave behind. It’s not a pretty job, or a safe one—there’s a reason I wear bite-proof gloves—but when you’re deep in debt in a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move around on their own, you don’t get to be picky about where your money comes from. You just have to make it work, even when the only thing of value in your latest repossessed apartment is the dead body of the mage who used to live there.
Private Investigator Alma is caught up in another impossible murder. One of the world’s four richest people may be dead – but nobody is sure which one. Hired to discover the truth behind the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the ultra-rich, Alma must juggle treating her terminally ill lover with a case which may not have a victim.
employees (among them, Handbrake, Flush, and Handcream) hired for two investigations. The first is into the background of a man surprisingly willing to wed a woman her father considers unmarriageable, and the second is into the disappearance six months earlier of a servant to a prominent Punjabi lawyer, a young woman known only as Mary.
This edition was produced by Random House in April 2016. The bright red cover with the curling font and line drawing of an outsized diamond ring gives a big clue that this is a romcom. I like this one – it’s bold, eye-catching and cheerful and certainly helped me decide to get hold of the book.
Published in May 2016 by The Borough Press, this one isn’t so successful as far as I’m concerned. While the girl is clearly beautiful – I don’t know why she decided to kiss the palm of her own hand and then start waving around. If there is a joke connected to this, then it’s slipped past me – and that isn’t a good feeling, either. I also dislike the amount of chatter on the cover, including that nasty intrusive blob.
This Swedish edition, published by Wahlström & Widstrand in January 2017, is a successful effort I really like. The eggshell background works well with the gold edging and the stars and the two rings let us know it is a romcom. I also appreciate the decorative font and the clean, restrained use of colour.
Produced by Mona Kitap in 2017, this Turkish edition also makes it quite clear that this novel is a comedy. The classic pink cover shouts romcom – however I do feel that while the updated Bennet family depicted around the cover is a nice idea, the figures are too small to produce strong eye appeal and end up looking rather random. Though I like the cat… At least I have a strong idea of the genre.
This German edition, published by HarperCollins in June 2017 is my favourite. The colour scheme with the eggshell blue background and lovely sprigs of those blowsy, heavily scented heritage roses give a lovely nod to the Austin roots of this book, as does that silhouette. Of all the covers, this one is the classiest and – I think – most accurately reflects the blending of old and new in the Austen Project series. Which is your favourite?
“The peace of the nation of Tir Tanagiri had been bitterly won. But after years of fighting against rival kingdoms and Jarnish invaders, the warrior Sulien ap Gwien and her lord, King Urdo, had finally won it, through great strength of arms – and greater strength of vision. For Sulien was inspired by Urdo’s dream of a kingdom ruled by justice, whose subjects all were equal under a single code of law. But where many see a hopeful new future for the land, others believe they sense the seeds of a new tyranny.”
Brainfluff 