Book Review | Spotted Lily by Anna Tambour

Spotted Lily arrived on my Kindle in a Storybundle group in July 2015. I think I should group the Storybundles for that date on my To Read list to see what it has in common with the others. Possibly ‘weird’. One of the reasons I read it now was because I needed a book with a title that ‘implied colour’ for the last of my Colour Coded Reading Challenge. It’s the first time I’ve found a title that fits the bill for that challenge. I’ve usually cheated with a multi-coloured cover like stripes, rainbow, etc..

Spotted Lily

Anna Tambour

Angela Pendergast, escapee from the Australian bush, grew up with the smell of hot mutton fat in her hair, the thought of her teeth crunching a cold Tim Tam chocolate biscuit-the height of decadent frivolity. Now, though her tastes have grown and she knows absolutely what she wants, her life is embarrassingly stuck. So when the Devil drops into her bedroom in her sharehouse in inner-city Sydney with a contract in hand, she signs. He’s got only a Hell’s week to fulfil his side, but in the meantime he must chaperone her—or is it the other way around? [goodreads]

My Review

There are various cultural things about this book that had me struggling, and then I wondered if it was just supposed to be weird.  I think it fits all the genre requirements!  It’s weird, funny, off-beat, strangely readable, and peculiar.

It’s also very difficult to review.

If I remember Angela is an Aussie, it kind of makes sense.  Her quirks are not particularly outrageous if you take cultural differences into account… until she gets really weird. I mean, talking to the Devil is one thing, making a pact with him is another.

A Hell’s week (which is all she’s got) is a helluva long time, it turns out. Angela has to be reinvented to suit the contract she’s asked the Devil to deliver for her. This leads on a random, rumbunctious, bizarre journey, intermixing high fashion, ultra-rich lifestyle with the problems of coping with the devil of a sexy beast.

Spotted Lily is funny, remarkable, and where on earth did the author get all these ideas from? Definitely worth reading if you like your devilled stories on the bizarre side.