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• I admit i have an addiction to novels set in the Victorian Era hence my love of Michel Faber's Crimson Petal & the White and now The Apple. As soon as i opened my little hardback version and started to read i knew i would be sat stationary for the next few days immersed in more stories about Sugar and her contemporaries. I was right, i don't think i even set the book down once until i'd finished the entire thing, i probably forgot to breathe at times, i was enjoying it so much! The unfortunate thing is there hasn't been another set of stories for me to read since, i literally cannot wait for another set to arrive in my recommended list on amazon. If you're not sure about buying this book i would say do it! That way you can read a little book of short stories and once you enjoy it you still have the massive Crimson Petal and the White to move onto.

  5.00 out of 5

  Shelbycat

• A delightful collection of seven short stories from the world of The Crimson Petal and the White. I had loved that novel so, that when I found out there were more glimpses into the Crimson Petal world, I just had to get it.The stories here are nothing spectacular and they don't reveal anything major about the characters. With the way the original novel ended, I'm sure people thought these stories would be a nice little wrap-up, as it were. They are not. They are, however, a sort of revisit of old friends and being introduced to a few new ones.Some of the stories take place before The Crimson Petal and the White and some take place after. Some a short time before, some a long time before; some a short time after, some a long time after.You get to drop in on the main characters of Sugar and William Rackman and others such as Clara, Mr. Bodley and Emmeline Fox.Overall, a satisfying collection of stories that would be entertaining to anyone who loved the original novel and know that they're not going to find anything too revealing here.

  4.00 out of 5

  runaway84

• I cannot get enough of Faber's characters. If he wrote 10 more books about Sugar, William, Agnes, and their world I would read them all. My favourite of the book's short stories was the last one, titled "A Mighty Horde of Women in Very Big Hats". The 60-page story manages to do for me what history books have failed to: it makes me visualize the whole stretch of time from the Victorian era to the Edwardian one. Faber makes you grasp the historical realities of the time in one quick gulp, a feat not even Dickens accomplishes. The man is an extremely talented writer and I will definitely look for more of his novels.

  4.00 out of 5

  girlunderglass

• The Crimson Petal and the White was one of my favourite books of recent years - certainly the most beautifully written, and this book is a collection of short stories about the characters, set both before, and after, Crimson Petal.Again, the writing is simply wonderful, but I guess you really have to have read Crimson Petal for them to make much sense. Pretty much the only thing wrong with this book is its length. It very short, and will be read in a couple of hours. I want more!I guess my only concern is whether it's better to actually be left to imagine what may have happened to the characters? Does it put too much closure by finding out more? Probably not, as Faber only hints at events.If you haven't read Crimson Petal, read that first, and you'll probably not be able to resist picking this up afterwards.

  4.00 out of 5

  michaeldwebb

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