Amazon.co.uk
It's New Year's Day and the year isn't kicking off well for Tansy: her mother's dead, she's a cocaine addict and her boyfriend has just left her. A trip around the world seems like the only option except that she's not interested in seeing the world, just escaping from it, and the last people she wants to hang out with are backpackers.

Like a lot of travellers on the Lonely-Planet-led Asian Grand Tour, Tansy is intensely irritating at first. Always on the look out for the "real" Vietnam--the one in which she can walk around "like a model, fanning myself gently, strolling into ancient temples and learning about inner peace"--she is opinionated, narrow-minded and remarkably naive (for a supposed media luvvy). Once she has shrugged off her addiction to lines of coke, skinny lattes and Nicole Fahri jumpers, she becomes more appealing. So by the time she's fallen for Max, a fellow traveller, she'll have won you over and you'll be just as worried as she is about the serial killer who appears to be on her trail.

Emily Barr is a former Westminster researcher who now writes for the Guardian and the Observer. Backpack is her first novel and, like Tansy, takes a while to find itself. City-girl pretensions jostle with shoestring-style travelogue and it is only when it hits full-throttle thriller mode that Barr's strength as a novelist becomes apparent. Be prepared for echoes of The Beach--hardly surprising given that Barr was an extra in the film. Also be prepared to get itchy feet--if nothing else, you'll be tempted to reach for that backpack and slap on the insect repellent.


I already know "Cuban Heels" and I liked it. So I bought this one today at the Brockenhaus. (Although I don't like the cover)

Hmm... I liked the book... even though the end was a bit too fast...... although it became clear too early!;-)

RELEASE NOTES:

Da ich am Di nicht ans Meetup gehen kann, landet das Buch Morgen schon Im Regal

Took this from the shelf in Café Gloria because I thought that it might be better off at the train station where a lonely traveller can find it!

RELEASE NOTES:

I left the book on a bench vis-à-vis "Les Arcades" where I often see backpackers waiting for their train and where it will hopefully be found and picked up by someone.