- Title And Author: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
- Publisher: Penguin/David Fickling Books
- Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
- Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
- Length: 546 Pages and 13 Hours 14 Minutes
It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? With me finally, FINALLY, getting my rear in gear and reading/audiobooking La Belle Sauvage, seeing how much I love the His Dark Materials trilogy and bought this as soon as I could.
But I held off reading this. For the same reason I’m holding off watching the BBC/HBO adaption of the series - The Fear! I mean, we have been waiting for these FOR YEARS! What if, after all this waiting, they don’t live up to our exceptions?!
So, how/why did I decide to do it now? Well, the audiobook is the main reason. Plus, The Secret Commonwealth for another. OK, let me explain. The Secret Commonwealth has just come out in hardback and I would like to read that as Lyra is an adult in this and I want to return and see what’s happened to her and her daemon, Pan. Now, the audiobook. I returned an audiobook after an hour’s listening on Audible and they, very kindly, gave me a credit as a refund. So, I decided to grab this (as well as activate a Black Friday deal of getting an Audible Subscription with 4 months being only £3.99 [The offer is still going. I think it ends on Thursday 12th December aka UK General Election Day or Friday 13th, so go go! Just remember to cancel it before the price goes up to £7.99])
Anyway, La Belle Sauavge, the first volume in the Book of Dust series is a little different from what everyone was expecting. We thought this was going to follow after His Dark Materials. Nope. This takes place years BEFORE, when Lyra is only six months.
Malcolm Polstead and his daemon, Asta, lives in the pub in Oxford by the river Thames. His life is fairly ordinary, even uneventful. But this winter, the rain won’t stop. Rumours of a flood are everywhere, and Malcolm finds himself near the centre of a battle between religion, science and politics, when he goes to the priory across the river and discover they are looking after a small six month baby called Lyra, daughter of Lord Asriel...
