I have just finished the most recent of the Philip Pullman books – The Secret Commonwealth.  My goodness he can tell a tale.  I knew it would be a good story; that is a given with Sir Philip as he is now.  What I hadn’t expected was the rollercoaster as we followed the three main protagonists across Europe and into further jeopardy. He writes jeopardy very well indeed. Having howled in frustration at the end of the second book in his first trilogy, The Subtle Knife, as he left us teetering on a cliff edge and waiting 18 months for the next book, I should have expected some sort of trauma at the end. What we got of course wasn’t a cliff edge but potential. How frustrating can potential be?

So I am now in book mourning and will most probably have to endure till October 2021 for the, as yet unnamed final book. I often feel like this but I think I shot through this book so quickly it has left me really quite bereft. I’ll recover. I am moving on to a non-fiction book that was a present also, but I then managed to lose it for a year; I think it may have been under the sofa. The Secret Life of Trees will be providing me with solace in more ways than one.