I Did a Bad Thing is Linda Green's debut. Linda is a freelance journalist. She also spent ten years working in regional newspapers in London and the Midlands.
Her heroine, Sarah Roberts, is a reporter on a local newspaper. She lives with her saintly, eco-warrier boyfriend Jonathan, and tries to do the right thing.
Then, her old love walks into the office and Sarah's past comes flooding back...
Linda Green's writing is fun, with lots of great dialogue, and all the details of small newspaper life, unsurprisingly perhaps, ring true. I liked and sympathised with Sarah, and found myself racing through the book, wanting to find out about her past.
Green structures the book with chapters from both the present and the past. Unfortunately, and this may just be me, but I found the swapping between the two quite disorientating. It threw me out of the story the first few times, and after a while, I found it a little annoying.
I think this is because the present portions are written in first person past tense, while the past bits are written in first person present tense. With me?
Also, the 'very bad thing', when it is revealed, just doesn't seem quite bad enough...
However, I do like Green's style and will be keen to read her next one. Also, if we had such a thing, I would've given this book three and a half stars, not just three.
Rating: 3/5
Like this? Try: Playing James by Sarah Mason
