Essex, serpents and Graves' Disease

Good news for Sarah Perry. My London book group is now reading The Essex Serpent to add to her sales among the metropolitan liberal elite. It's also been all over Waterstone's as the store's book of the year. Serpent is a great read and magically evokes the mysterious scenery of the Blackwater estuary, as well as containing the Colchester earthquake and some vivid writing on the Victorian conflict between science and religion. Check out Perry's recent interview in the Guardian too, where she reveals that the strain of writing and selling the novel might have given her the Gothic-sounding Graves' Disease (it affects the thyroid and leaves the sufferer exhausted). She says she lay in bed repeating every one star review on Amazon to herself, though she's certainly not had many of those and the critics' response has been overwhelmingly positive. Thankfully the Chelmsford-born Perry is now recovering from the worst effects of the disease and will hopefully be well enough to complete another book soon, because she's one of our most talented new authors.