A select few knew how much I was looking forward to the arrival of this book. Only close family and friends and everyone who has met me over the last couple of years (or bumped into me online). I get enthusiastic, occasionally; and when I get enthusiastic, I do it enthusiastically, with enthusiasm. The Gone-Away World had its wicked way with me. But it is a first book.
Discovering Wodehouse is fairly safe, as is discovering Dumas or Doyle or Woolf or Austen or Peake or any number of other established authors. Except Harper Lee or those other people who get you hooked on their one book and leave you wanting more forever. Falling for the first book of a new author is terrifying. It could be a happy accident: what you loved about the book may be that which is shed as its author moves on to write other books which leave all the good stuff behind. I am a paranoid reader.
