Apples and a sprinkling of Sugar: the recipe for a bodice-flaunting tart with a heart. Read on to win a copy of this week’s book!

on 3 December 2011 in Lifestyle

Global Cool’s resident bookworm Danielle brings you her favourite reads, inspiring you to ditch the car and the stress of the morning commute and bury your head in a great book on the bus or train instead…

We all know that the best stories require a sequel: The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather, Bridget Jones; even Sex and the City was popular enough to warrant another trip back into those Manolos.

If you were a fan of Michael Faber’s bestselling The Crimson Petal and the White, or loved the BBC adaptation, then this collection of short stories will be perfect for picking up on the way to work and launching you from one type of dark and overcrowded underground to another. And you could win it!

In The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories, Faber offers his colourful cast of Victorian miscreants another chance to live again. Each short story is a world unto itself and a snapshot into a seedy Victorian Soho, a part of town where orphans picked pockets and prostitutes exposed an ankle or two.

So what’s all the fuss?
Each of these seven tales features a figure first introduced in The Crimson Petal. However, all is not as it might seem: this is not a chronological follow-on. Instead, we get glimpses of some character’s lives before we first met them and others we meet several years down the line.

We open with the story of ‘Christmas in Silver Street’, to the spectacle of seventeen-year old prostitute Sugar, bleary from drinking the night before, scanning her tongue in a hand-mirror. She braves the snow-lined streets to do some Christmas shopping, no doubt bustling through the crowds to buy her cards, sugared mice and the last scraggy chicken in the butchers for her festive fare.

Each story is a quick, satisfying read, composed with Faber’s crisp and informed storytelling. He certainly has the measure of his characters and it’s clear he is still in touch with their world.

Fancy getting your hands on a copy? As usual, we’re giving it away to one lucky reader! Just tell us what you’re reading on the bus or train by 11am on Friday December 16th by leaving your recommendations in the comments box below.

Good Luck!

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You can also have a chat with us on Twitter @booksinpublic

THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED – THANKS FOR ALL THE RECOMMENDATIONS AND WELL DONE TO STEVEN MONTGOMERY, WHOSE COMMENT WAS CHOSEN AT RANDOM TO WIN THE BOOK