'Venom is a roaringly good read.'
 
Click here to read the full review on TheBookbag.co.uk, or read an extract below:
 
Joan Brady was the first ever winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year award for her rather excellent and critically acclaimed Theory of War. It appears Joan wrote Venom, follow up to Bleedout, under some rather trying circumstances (pre and post heart surgery) and the newly septuagenarian author's sixth novel is probably the better for it, or so she says in a recent newspaper article! Brava! I struggle to put the kettle on when I have a cold! Now, whilst I have nothing to compare it with – I am a Brady-Virgin – I'd be inclined to take her word for it because although Venom took a little while to get going (about one whole third of the book, which seemed like a lot at the time), once the story had cleared the safety car, it shot skywards at a pace not dissimilar to one of those nosebleed rides at Alton Towers.
 
I think the key lies with Brady's characters as they are intensely likeable. Take David Marion – damaged, slightly feral, occasionally deadly but capable of great compassion and love; Helen Freyl – often spoiled, a tad too minxy for her own good but surprisingly resourceful and Grandma Becky – a butter-would-not-melt-in-this-little-old-lady's-mouth, hard-talking, butt-kicking, matriarch who does not take anyone's answer for anything, whether it's yes or no! It is this trait in her characters – you know, the one that makes you say you wicked old lady out loud whilst you are reading – that binds you to the story and actually it was this that kept me going through the slow burn of the first third of the story. And I'm glad of it too. Venom is a very, very good story – that slight edge of believability surrounding the cure for radiation poisoning (like with Jurassic Park – who knows what science can make possible that we have not even thought about yet?) keeps you wanting more right up to the last page.
 
Venom is a roaringly good read. The only reason it got four Bookbag stars and not five is purely for the slow start because, to be honest, I think it delivers on every other level. In all conscience, I can't not recommend it to you!