'London in the eighteenth century is a city of extremes: squalor and superstition vie with elegance and enlightenment as the capital's brilliant architect Nicholas Dyer is commissioned to build several new churches in the aftermath of the great fire.

Two hundred and fifty years later in the vast, sprawling metropolis of London the legacy of the past lives on, as CID Detective Nicholas Hawksmoor investigates a series of macabre murders that have occurred on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches in the City...'

This will be setting out as a bookray as soon as I have finished it. Participants so far;

DryKid UK (UK)
cally-c UK (EU)
Fluffy-Owl UK (UK)
shovelmonkey1 UK (UK)
WigglyWoods UK (Intl)
gwendy USA (Intl)

This book was very confusing, especially in the first part. The second half of the book was much better in my opinion but all of it was very interesting especially the description of the churches in old England.

The language was great though and I really enjoyed the phonetic spelling. Another 1001 book to tick off my list.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Beginning it's journey as a bookray. I hope all participants enjoy this book and thank you all for joining. Starting with DryKid xx

Thanks for starting this book bookray Danielle, received the book yesterday, I'm really looking forward to reading this one.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

This was a really good read, loved the Olde English and the way the book traversed the different times in history. A bit tough to start with but once I got into it very much enjoyed Ackroyds style and the atmosphere he created with his prose. Sent on to next participant 21/10/09

This arrived a couple of weeks ago & I have just realised I forgot to 'catch it! Very sorry for the delay.
I am reading it now & enjoying it - hopefully it won't be too long before it's travelling again.

I really enjoyed this once I got into the style of it. Very atmospheric, loved the idea of the subversive church designs, made me want to go & have a look for myself.

Thank you for sharing!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Off to Fluffy-owl.....

Received today, thank you!

Dreadful. Clever to try to use olde English, but I found it hard to read and therefore got annoyed with it and found it very hard to continue reading. Not worth my time or effort. Next!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Posting off today, hope it travels well in the snow!

Picked up today and will read over the christmas holidays (thanks fluffy-owl)! It's coming to snowy scotland with me where it will be released before new year to the next person on the list. Thanks for sharing, Danielle23.

I really loved this book! It was a little hard to adjust to the alteration between modern and old english chapters depending on which century the book was in but apart from that it was great. I liked the idea of the parallel times - if you like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy then i think you will definately like this book too. This book also had extra meaning for me as part of my period of interest is the 17th/18th century development of cities and in particular the major phases of architectural regeneration including the church building programmes. The Christ Church Spitalfields excavations (the plague cemetery) are well know within archaeological circles and the CCS typology is the one which is used all over the UK to analyse coffin fittings and coffin plates and is one which i refer to often so i've read a lot of history about this church.

Another 1001 book ticked off the list!

Now ready to travel onto Wigglywoods who is next on the list for this book and it will be released once the post offices re-open on Tuesday after the christmas break. Now reading The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Arrived this morning - many thanks Shovelmonkey and Danielle23. Looking forward to reading this, it will be my next read.

Have pm'd gwendy for an address so that I can post this on. I found this one difficult to get into but after persevering I thoroughly enjoyed it.

edit : posted on 23/3/10 - 2nd class.

Have a couple in front of this one... hopefully is OK since I'm last? Thanks for sharing your book!