A Night on the Orient Express

by Veronica Henry

[Leah]

Veronica Henry is an author with many books under her belt, but is an author I’ve never read before. I don’t know how, though, and I do have The Long Weekend sitting on my book shelf. As soon as I heard about her newest novel A Night on the Orient Express, I wanted to read it. The Orient Express sounds like such an amazing journey, definitely a bucket list item if ever there was one and I was enthralled about reading a novel about characters journeying on the Orient Express.

As you may guess from the title, A Night on the Orient Express focuses on a night on the Orient Express and the people who have decided to take the legendary journey. There’s Riley, who’s meeting up with a much beloved friend; Archie and Emmie, two people set up by their friends on dating website Not on the Shelf and who are soulmates, according to the people on the site anyway; Stephanie, Simon and Simon’s two kids who are hoping the trip will bring them closer and Imogen, making the journey to retrieve her birthday present from her Grandmother.

At first I was a touch wary reading a novel with so many different characters, but I easily grasped all the different stories and tales occurring and found myself massively intrigued in all of these people’s lives. Imogen’s grandmother’s, Adele’s, story, is a massive part of the novel, and I found myself desperate for more each time we learnt a tidbit more about her life as a young adult. The best part was, all of the stories interested me, so much. Even reading about the Orient Express itself was so fascinating and magical. The romance of the journey, the romance of the characters, it was just such a beautiful novel.

I really, really enjoyed A Night on the Orient Express. I now wish to journey on the Orient Express and visit Venice and follow in the footsteps of all of the characters. Veronica Henry is a brilliant writer, she manages to really bring you in to the lives of her characters and I was desperate for everyone to get everything they wished for. This is a fabulous novel, an absolute summer must-read, I look forward to reading more of Veronica’s work and I can’t believe it’s taken so long for me to read one of her novels, but what a novel to start with, it was awesome!