Anarchic, anachronistic and very enjoyable.

First, I have to comment on the narration by Rosie Jones. She is superb. Her performance is outstanding - better than perfect. The way she brings each character to life is remarkable. She is able to take this cross cultural, cross-textual literary endeavour and actually extend it, just with the quality of her reading. But there also needs to be grist for the mill. Harris has written two wonderful books in this series. It doesn't matter that they are aimed at younger readers; it doesn't matter that there is a strong post-feminist and post structural undergirding for these novels. The books and the narratives stand alone and can be enjoyed by any one at any age. They're just really enjoyable stories. But the books do speak to a younger audience. Both my girls (9 and 10) love these books. The centralisation of the female characters go a long way towards this. Sadly, this is not typical of literature in general and certainly not in the fantasy genre. Even Ursula LeGuin had male central characters in her novels. So Harris is changing the world here, as she says, one book at a time. The anachronistic elements in Runemarks are extended in Runelight. And an older reader might find these challenging. But if you suspend your disbelief just a half a turn more than usual, these become very funny. The wolf brothers, for example, are typically teenage males, obsessed with skulls and black shirts and absolutely mystified by females of any age or description; except of course for their outrageously heeled punk-haired fae/witch mother, whom they adore and who encourages their voracious appetite for destruction and 'vagabondism'. All in all, this is an excellent audiobook to have in your library and I highly recommend that anybody who likes a good tale, wonderfully read, to buy this audiobook. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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