This is one of the oddest books that I have read.

Andrew Garvie collects and makes dolls. He has a pen friend, Bramber, which is unusual enough in thi age of social media, and he decides that he is going to meet her, and rescue her from the mental asylum she lives in, in Cornwall.

On the way Andrew and Brambers story unfolds. As does their mutual admiration of a polish author Ewa Chaplin, whose short story’s form part of the novel.

The main problem for me is the journey from London to Cornwall is recounted, and Andrew and Brambers life journeys. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, an Ewa Chaplin story falls in and forms the plot. Then, just as suddenly when you are getting into the sub story, it jolts back to the Andrew-Bramber plotline.

Andrew and Bramber meet up, Andrew goes home. The story just ends.

I was left at the end thinking what? Really? But it is unusual as somehow the novel all folds together. The Ewa Chaplin short stories were brilliant. Andrew is a dwarf, and dwarfs feature within her plotlines. In fact I came away wishing Ewa Chaplin was a real person and I could download her short stories as I found they stayed with me longer than the Andrew-Bramber plotline.

Whilst this is not The Miniaturist, this is a book worth persevering with. Thank you to the publisher, and Netgalley for my advance ARC in return for an honest review.

It starts with an enigmatic personal ad in a doll collector's magazine:

INFORMATION WANTED ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF DOLLMAKER EWA CHAPLIN AND/OR FRIENDSHIP, CORRESPONDENCE. PLEASE REPLY TO: BRAMBER WINTERS.

Andrew Garvie makes exquisite antique dolls; unique, graceful and diminutive in size, just like him. When he makes contact with Bramber Winters, he is drawn into her life letter by letter. Bramber has lived a strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, having survived terrible experiences as a child. Because Andrew also knows what it is like to feel trapped, the two form a close bond before Andrew eventually makes a plan to rescue Bramber. Andrew sets out through the old towns of England, reading the fairytales of Ewa Chaplin along the way. When the two meet, they must decide whether they are going to step out into the world - effectively come to life - or stay alone and still like their dolls.

Essentially The Dollmaker is a love story; a love story about two unusual people who, though they sometimes blur the lines of imaginary and truth, are very, very real. The relationship between the characters is both charming and original, and I love the magical feeling that seemed to swell and simmer around them.

The structure can be a bit problematic. Information on each of our character's stories is fed to you in short bursts, and is interspersed by macabre short stories written by Ewa, which broke up the flow just a little for me. Although these five tales act almost as short stories in themselves, they come at a time when you feel the narrative is gaining momentum, and this can draw on a reader's patience.

This is a novel of wonder and truth, partly fantastical but also about the mundane. The story is cleaver and elegant but also multi-layered in how it presents a disquieting, haunting atmosphere. It is subtly scary in parts, particularly with its use of dark fable-like imagery, but this only adds to the creepy magic that surround this novel.

An enchanting and often mesmerising read, I enjoyed my time with The Dollmaker. 3.5 stars.

This book took me by surprise for sure! It's an unexpected gem. Its writing was different, very complex and multi layered. It was hard work to be honest, but worth it in the end. It was one of those slow going tales that you need to take your time and enjoy.
It felt like almost consisting of short stories that added up to create the big picture. I see that some people give up at the beginning, but I'm glad I continued.
I loved Andrew and Bramber. I think the strongest part of this book was these charming characters. It was very atmospheric and I definitely enjoyed going through their stories.
I would read from the author again as I found it original.
Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nina Allen has penned a multi-layered book in The Dollmaker. I must confess that I was anticipating something along the lines of the Toy Makers and The Night Circus but there is no similarity whatsoever. The Dollmaker in question Andrew Garvie, is traced through childhood up to his career as a craftsman of collectible dolls. Thanks to a small personal advert in a doll making magazine Andrew embarks on a highly detailed trip from London to the West Country in a bid to rescue a fellow doll fanatic in the shape of a young lady, Bramber, who appears to be living in a hospital of some sort. To while away the journey Andrew starts to read a series of short stories written by another Dollmaker Ewa Chapman, who Bramber admires. These short stories begin to reflect circumstances and people whom Andrew knows. This book required so much concentration to read, and in fact I had to resort to writing notes on the plethora of characters, and in the end I was lost and unfortunately disengaged. Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for the ARC.

Once again I have read a book that I enjoyed but didn’t love and once again I have read a book that felt comprised of two halves.
Now, when I say halves I don’t mean that I’m comparing the first half of the book to the second half. I mean that there were two things going on in this book; one I loved and one that I would consider ‘ok’.
The set up is that Andrew and Bramber are pen pals; both lonely and both with trauma in their pasts. They also both enjoy dolls, Andrew on a bit of a more serious level than Bramber, but it’s enough for them to make a genuine and quite sweet connection.
The complexity that comes in is that Andrew is a person of diminutive statue and Bramber is institutionalized. But that’s ok because Andrew has made it his mission to ‘rescue’ her. I say ‘rescue’ with quotes because actually Bramber doesn’t really need rescuing as she’s happy where she is.
Really this story is about Andrew’s journey to rescue himself.
The story is told in an interesting way which I did like. We get Andrew reflecting on his life as he travels through the country to get to Bramber and this is interspersed with the copies of the letters he has received from Bramber so we get a real sense of who she is as a person too.
Both their stories are tinged with a poignant sadness as both have suffered a variety of traumatic events during their lives. Yet somehow, despite this plot line being the bulk of the story it just feels a little lost.
We are looking back on their lives as they both move forward (Bramber emotionally and Andrew as he travels) but there is something that feels a little flat about this plot-line. Nothing much happens. Andrew reflects, he reads Bramber’s letters, he thinks about dolls, he steals a doll and he travels.
This part of the book is that bit that I consider ‘ok.’ Not bad but certainly nothing particularly riveting either. Their individual trauma’s don’t make an impact emotionally because they both just process it them as thoughts of the past and move on.
The other thing that Andrew does during his travels is read a copy of a book that Bramber sent him. This is a collection of short stories by a fictionalised author, Ewa Chaplin, and the tales resonate with Andrew because they feature something in some way that connects to him, Bramber or other people in their lives.
This element is interestingly sinister. Why are some of the fictional stories running parallel to Andrew’s life? Is there a reason behind it? Is it highlighting his own character? Is it foreshadowing something deadly in his nature?
I don’t know. That’s the answer to all the questions. I don’t know.
The stories exist for Andrew to occasionally remark, ‘how oddly pertinent’ (or similar) but there is no strong link, no consequence and no foreshadowing payoff. This is both frustrating (why include something with no payoff after building anticipation?) and confusing (why are they even there at all)?
But these short stories, also interspersed throughout the main story, are the best things about The Dollmaker. In fact I wish this whole book was just a collection of the bizarre, compelling and often macabre short stories instead of the story between Andrew and Bramber.
The main story felt like filler while the short stories took over the page. They are filled with people with dwarfism (like Andrew) and love and longing. There are acts of betrayal and violence and revenge. There’s sex and lust and the faint whispers of magic and fae folk that tantalizingly dangle out of sight. Is it magic or is it trickery? Are these stories contemporary fairy tales or mini horrors?
I don’t know but I didn’t need to know because I loved the short stories and the horrid and wonderful little worlds they showed.
It’s just such a shame that these were used to support an alright but pretty semi-bland main story when actually I feel like these could have been in a short story collection of their own.
The Dollmaker is an enjoyable book overall but I probably won’t remember the main plot in months to come while some of the short stories may continue to haunt me.

It took me over a month to finish this book - although once I’d tuned into the book’s style and pacing I raced through the final third or so - and I still don't really know what my opinion on it is.

As someone who needs continuous prose to get sucked in, the inserted fairytale-type stories by the fictional Ewa Chaplin are a distraction at first. While obviously connected to the main narrative, they take you out of it to explore a second fictional world.

The repetitive subjects of the fairytale - physical deformities, artists, alchemy, amber etc - serve a purpose as reflected in the primary story, but after so many go rounds of a story-within-a-story it gets a bit tiresome to keep reading through.

I did enjoy them once I got into the rhythm of them, though. However, I was expecting them - with their heavy metaphors - to bear some significance to the book’s ending, but they didn’t seem to.

The ending also left lots of questions unanswered about Bramber’s residence for me - doubts about its legitimacy crept into my mind throughout the book - and into the protagonist’s mind, briefly but no conclusion was met.

Overall, probably a 3.5/5.

DNFed this book as at the beginning a subject came up that I did not expect and that made me very unhappy and I found so unpleasant that it cancelled any further interest to continue reading this book. Trigger warnings for this book would have been very useful.

This book was rather different to what I was expecting, almost a book of short, fairytale-like stories making up the larger one. This clever and absolutely beautifully written book is perhaps a little difficult to get to grips with at first but I am so glad I persevered as the reward was certainly worth it.

I had never read any of Nina Allan’s books, but when I saw The Dollmaker on Twitter, there was just something about the cover that spoke to me, something in the blurb that drew me in, so I dashed to NetGalley and requested it. When I was approved I was over the moon! Then I started reading it, and to be perfectly honest: I thought I’d made a mistake in requesting The Dollmaker, that maybe it wasn’t one for me. But me being me, I decided not to count my chickens before they hatched and give it a fair try. Suddenly I looked up, 200 pages in, wondering where Sunday afternoon had gone to, and why on earth I’d had such reservations! In hindsight, I think I needed some time to get used to the writing style and to make sense of the story’s make-up.

The tale is threefold: it alternates between Andrew, Bramber and various short stories from the hand of Ewa Chaplin. We first meet Andrew when he’s a young boy encountering his first doll. Just like that, a passion is born and before long Andrew starts making dolls himself. Then we meet Bramber, a woman with a bit of a chequered past, who lives in a remote mansion in a remote area and puts out an ad to which Andrew responds and so they start communicating by letter. Andrew falls head over heels for Bramber and decides he has to meet her, save her, so from then on we follow Andrew on his journey to Bramber, whom we get to know through her letters to Andrew. While Andrew is on the road, he reads some enthralling short stories, little mini thrillers with murder and magic in them. I have to say, that first story confused me a little, what was it doing there?! Although the short stories are mentioned in the blurb I had thought they would be mentioned in passing throughout the book, not that there would be entire stories. However, I ended up positively adoring Ewa’s stories. I loved how they featured dwarfs and were linked to Andrew in that way because he has dwarfism himself. I found myself looking forward to another one whenever the narrative focussed on Andrew and Bramber for more than a few chapters. Although I also enjoyed those parts, mind; during the short stories I found myself wondering what would happen when Andrew finally met Bramber in real life, what would she make of him and his small stature and I was always eager to find out more about the enigmatic woman herself. I do feel the short stories might be a little too long for some readers: they really break up the Andrew-Bramber storyline and I think it might get confusing or annoying if you can only read a few pages at a time. But if you do like I did and read half the book in one sitting, you’ll have no problems with that!

I’m so happy I didn’t DNF this after the first chapters! I ended up thoroughly enjoying both the writing style and the narrative and if you like quirky tales that are just a little bit different from everything else, then you should definitely check this one out!

The Dollmaker is out on 4 April! Pre-order here.

Many thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the free e-ARC. All opinions are my own and I was not paid to give them.

https://lynns-books.com/2019/03/25/the-dollmaker-by-nina-allan/
The Dollmaker is s book that I have struggled to write a review for, on the one hand this is a complex story with beautiful writing that contains a series of fascinating smaller stories within, on the other hand it didn’t really work out well for me. I confess I have a strange fascination for books and films with dolls – probably because they scare me a little – and we all like a good scaring every now and again – well I do anyway. I think that this probably gave me unreasonable expectations of what this story would eventually become and that is totally my own fault – check out the synopsis below which is a very apt description and in no way whatsoever misleading. Basically, I led myself down the garden path with this one and so, to be absolutely clear, this is definitely a case of ‘it’s me not you’. If this sounds like your cup of tea then please don’t be put off by the fact that this wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be.

Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive but graceful, unique, and with surprising depths. Perhaps that’s why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector’s magazine.

Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped, and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.

On his journey through the old towns of England, he reads the fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin–potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice–to break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.

A love story of two very real, unusual people, The Dollmaker is also a novel rich with wonders: Andrew’s quest and Bramber’s letters unspool around the dark fables that give our familiar world an uncanny edge. It is this touch of magic that, like the blink of a doll’s eyes, tricks our own.

This is a story of two people (Andrew and Bamber), both struggling a little, both lonely, who find each other through a personal ad in a magazine and become close following the exchange of many letters. Both are collectors of dolls and this shared interest creates a bond between the two. This is a story of self discovery for both.

Firstly, the things I really enjoyed about this book.

The writing is gorgeous. It’s evocative, it’s clever, it’s impressive. I loved that parts of the story were told through letters, I love this way of telling a tale.

The setting. Cornwall, I love Cornwall and have spent a lot of time there and so the settings were so interesting for me to read about.

The short stories within the main body. These were great – and very unexpected for me as I don’t make a secret of the fact that short stories are not really my thing so the fact that I couldn’t wait for the next one was something of a revelation. The short stories themselves are a collection of dark fairy tales written by a famous dollmaker, each of them seems to resonate personally and in fact share strange parallels with Andrew as he makes his way across Cornwall on his mission to rescue Bamber. I loved these stories and could easily have read more.

So, why didn’t this quite work out for me. I haven’t got any real criticisms as such. I think this is a strange combination of unrealistic expectations coupled with a story arc that ambled just a little too much for my own liking. I think the latter third of the book picked up the pace but reaching that point felt like it took quite a while and by that point my interest had waned.

I certainly don’t want to put anybody else off. This is a beautiful piece of work that unfortunately, and maybe it’s a mood thing, didn’t quite work out for me.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Well, this was a little different from my usual reads. It can best be described as a book of short stories which integrate well into a main storyline connecting them to the present day narrative. At first, I found them a bit distracting and found it a bit hard getting back into the main story and I did nearly put the book down, but I persevered and eventually managed to get with the program, especially when life imitating art became more prevalent and I realised how clever the author had been with her integration.
So, we follow Andrew, a dollmaker, as he initially corresponds with Bramber, after he responds to the personal ad she placed in his doll collector magazine. They bond over the works of Ewa Chaplin who has written some rather strange fairy tales and spend time in correspondence. But this long-distance relationship isn't enough for Andrew so he plans a journey to go meet Bamber and it is this journey that the book is mostly about. A journey that sees him acting outside character, almost like Bamber has bewitched him and this spell, coupled with his reading of the Chaplin tales along the way, makes for a very strange journey indeed. But, what will happen when/if they finally meet? As he finally realises that Bramber has been institutionalised most of her life...
I've already mentioned that this book was initially rather disjointed for me initially but I am so glad I read through my discomfort and carried on. As soon as things started to lick into place, I realised the importance of the inclusion of the tales into the book and the parallels with the narrative. I don't think I've read a book which contains layered stories within stories but, once I got to grips with it, I found it to be quite an interesting way of doing things and would definitely welcome more in the future.
Short stories aside now and on to the main characters. I did warm to Andrew straight away. Short of stature but definitely not short of character, he has found his place in life by creating and resurrecting dolls. When he answers Bramber's ad and the two start corresponding, he starts to initially get a bit obsessed by her and I guess wants to save her. Bramber is more enigmatic with her tales of where she lives and the other people who surround her. I didn't quite enjoy her parts as much as Andrew's journey but they were an important inclusion, however distracting to me. I just wanted to race to the end to see what happened when/if they finally met up.
It was quite a slow book, which I am not particularly fond of, probably mostly due to the disjointed nature of the construction and it did take me a while to get through. Pacing was a bit hit and miss also for the same reason. Just when Andrew was getting somewhere, we segued off into another of Ewa's tales which broke the momentum a bit for me.
The writing was lyrical at times with a layer of Gothic undertones. It felt also, at times, a bit historical, by that I mean that although set in the present, it felt like the action was going on in the past. Probably due to the now dying art of letter writing being a big focus. There were other things that made it feel like that for me but, you know, spoilers!
All in all, a good solid read that although didn't set me on fire, did leave me satisfied at its eventual conclusion. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

After turning the last page of this novel I had no idea what to think. The first thought that popped into my mind was: ‘What did I just read?’ I wasn’t able to state if I liked or disliked this story. Even now days later it is quite hard to have coherent thoughts about The Dollmaker. While reading, my husband asked a couple of times what my book was about and I couldn’t even give a decent synopsis. I just kept saying: “I am not quite sure.”
And honestly I think that is the best judgement that I can give of this story. I am not quite sure what the point of this story is, but I actually enjoyed reading it. I am going to try to be a little more cohesive in this review.
The unusual structure of the book is without any doubt the strongest selling point of The Dollmaker. We follow Andrew on his journey across England to meet up with his pen pal Bramber. But we also follow Bramber, through her letters written to Andrew. And as an extra we have a series of stories within the story. These chapters are stories written by de fictional dollmaker Ewa Chaplin, a book that Andrew is reading on his journey.
The dark fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin are the true strength of the book. They are eerie, dark and interesting. Apart from that they serve a double purpose. When Andrew reads these fairy tales he sees them mirroring his own life and that of the people he meets and knows. The parallels between Andrews real life and the stories really took the story to the next level and gave the reader a deeper look into his private life.
What personally irritated me throughout the book was the fact that it was all fiction. Before you start rolling your eyes let me explain. Throughout the book there is constant talk about doll museums, doll exhibitions, doll artist and books about antique dolls. I am the kind of reader who starts to google while reading because I want to see what the author is referring to. Well… she was referring to fictional musea, fictional books and fictional artist. And honestly I am not quite sure why, because it only took me about 5 minutes to find real doll musea, real doll books and real doll artists.
Apart from that the story was just all in all not really engaging. I understand the author tried to write a magical realism story, but for me it failed. The story wasn’t engaging. It didn’t draw you in as a reader. It is dark and with a somber tone, which could have work brilliantly as an atmosphere creator. It was all too vague with no real plot and no real plot point.
The dollmaker could have been an enchanting, dark, magical story, but it just never really takes off. It is well written and the format is interesting. But the overall story is just really lacking. A shame because it could have been a wonderful reading experience.

Dolls and dwarfs and beautiful/crippled hands - repeat!
We follow the doll maker Andrew Garvie on his journey from London to Cornwall for a surprise visit to his institutionalised penpal Bramber Winters. Like him, Bramber loves and collects dolls and is fascinated by stories written by the doll maker Ewa Chaplin. Suddenly, the main story, often with painfully boring travel details, jolts to a halt and a verrry long story by Ewa Chaplin begins and - cue jolt - back to Andrew’s journey. Then letters between Bramber and Andrew. Then another story. I lost count of and interest in the long string of characters and whether they belonged to a story or were supposed to be real or both. I was expecting that the stories would eventually be either linked to each other or have some major bearing on the main story. Alas, no such luck.
The problem is that the book dips its toes into too many waters - love story, fairy tale, fantasy, crime, letters, biography, spy story - but never commits to a link between them, rather leaving the reader dangling uncomfortably. It probably would work as a collection of short stories with the main “thread” as an introduction but in the current format, it’s a no from me.

Thank you to NetGalley for this Advance Reader Copy of 'The Dollmaker', which I received in exchange for an honest review.

Andrew Garvie is a doll maker, a doll collector and a doll enthusiast. It is in a dedicated magazine where he reads a letter from Bramber Winters, a fellow collector in Cornwall, who is keen to get in touch with other enthusiasts. This is a love story of sorts, with a journey through the towns of England, providing the backdrop for Andrew's narrative as he travels closer to Bramber's residence.

'The Dollmaker' is unlike anything else I've ever read, being structured from three intertwining forms: the narrative of Andrew Garvie, the letters of Bramber Winters, and the translated Polish fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin. If I'm honest, it took me a while to get into this book - I started by reading it section by section, getting so engrossed in one strand of the plait that I completely forgot about the other two. However, when I started to read in longer sessions, I soon saw how all three were weaving together, mimicking the others in a series of strange parallel events. At this point, I began to really enjoy reading 'The Dollmaker'.

I absolutely loved this up until the last few pages. The resolution was unrewarding therefore I felt very disappointed. My first impulse is to give it 2*, but that doesn't do it justice. First of all the prose itself was gorgeous. Secondly I really loved the themes explored in the plot: "the outsider": not fitting in both as a person and as interests, yet the promise of a world that's there for you to explore and feel yourself in. The macabre and grotesque touches: the troll dolls(I would really, really love to own one), the "strangeness" of the stories, the myths, the story inside the story, the subtle connections between the stories and the main plot etc
You can say is a matter of personal preference, but I really feel like we've been enticed with morsels of strangeness, always on edge between real and magic for then to be left high and dry. I would have liked more surrealism. Or better said, I would have love for the resolution to actually tip the balance in favor of surrealism rather than realism.

I have given up on this book at 14%. It is a bizarre mix of a boy/man (not sure which) heading off to meet up with a penfriend who appears to be incarcerated in an asylum on Bodmin Moor. It all sounds very Gothic although mobile phones are mentioned so presumably it is set in current day. Then we get a mention of a book of short stories that he is reading in his hotel room. We then get the actual story, supposedly written by a person who made collectable and covetable dolls. That story starts at 7% and is still going, with no sign of ending, when I gave up on the book. It actually goes on to 19% on my kindle. And, having read others' reviews it seems that this format is repeated. It's an odd book, that's for sure, and certainly not for me. NetGalley and the publisher provided me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review. I am sorry it couldn't have been a positive one.

Also - the formatting needs work before this is published. Feint fonts, unfinished sentences etc.

I tried to finish this multiple times but skimmed through it in the end. I expected a standard novel.
I'm not a fan of short stories and this is sort of what it was. Stories in stories and I didn't see the point of it and I didn't care at all.
I can see that some people are going to like this whimsical book, but personally it's not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and Quercus for providing me with a copy.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I was really looking forward to reviewing this book and was so not disappointed. This was a beautifully written story and is a worthy 5 stars

I found The Dollmaker to be a very disjointed and strange read. The core story is Dollmaker Andrew’s journey to see his pen friend Bramber who lives in an odd institution in Bodmin Moor. I must admit I didn’t find this story very interesting; it was mainly flashbacks on Andrew’s life mixed with letters from Bramber and dull details about his journey. I found Andrew to be very forgettable to say he is the main character – I had forgotten his name and even whether he was male or female after a couple of the short stories had gone by. He’s also a ‘dwarf’ (the book’s terminology) but this information is thrown at us as a bit of an afterthought to say it’s one of the main themes of the book.

On Andrew’s journey he brings a book of fairy tales by Ewa Chaplin and these are inserted into the text in what felt like a very random fashion. A few of the earlier stories such as the one starring Anders Tessmond were great but a few of the later ones I struggled with – it almost felt like the author ran out of ideas. All of the stories had the same unfortunate layout – they were very slow to start and then they’d be a decision or twist which would ramp up my interest and then they’d fizzle out completely or just stop with you never feeling like you got a good conclusion from them. You’d then be frustratingly hurled back into the dull core storyline caring even less about the characters in front of you.

The short stories were supposed to be closely mirroring Andrew and Brambers lives and backstories but they it was so close that it felt unrealistic within the narrative. Rather than the theme of dolls running through the text it felt like dwarves and romance were actually the key themes and the author had just been a bit nervous to name it as such. I also started to lose track as to what I’d read in the stories and what was pointless backstory from our main characters lives. As the relationships between the short stories and the main story was so close I was expecting a major twist or reveal at the end of the book that would tie it all together – something to make me want to re-read all of the stories again to really appreciate what had been happening. I even had a couple of really nice twist ideas in my head, all of which would be much better than what we got which was very disappointing – just like the short stories, it fizzled out to nothing. The whole book felt very much like a good first draft with some nice ideas that should have been taken further, rather than a published finished product.

I don’t normally mention formatting in ARC reviews – I totally understand that fonts may not be right or paragraph breaks might be in odd places as novels are imported to a different format. That said, I have never read an ARC where sentences are left unfinished before – I have several examples of this in The Dollmaker which definitely need sorting before publication!

Overall I found The Dollmaker to be a dull and frustrating read that has a lot of potential but goes nowhere with it. Thank you to NetGalley & Quercus Books – riverrun for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received this as an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have to say that this book has no clear storyline. It messes around between a man's journey across devon - his stays in Wade and Exeter are detailed in excruciating detail - His letters from a fellow"doll" fan which originate in some sort of mental asylum and the totally incomprehensible fairy stories of the supposed Ewa Chaplin. I dont know what the author was trying to achieve but all she has managed is a soup of disparate parts.

I have reviewed on Goodreads but won't review anywhere else it is poor writing, even worse storyline and the characters made no impression on me at all

This is my first and last Nina Allan book. I find it incomprehensible that it has so many good reviews