Since I allow myself the luxury of not summarising a book’s plot/premise in my reviews, I thought the process of reviewing would be fun and easy. Well, it is fun, but it’s not always easy.

The trouble is spoilers. They just creep in. Often there is just a smal niggle with a book, but if I mention it…there goes a spoiler. So what’s a reviewer to do? Ignore the niggle (that’s generally my choice), highlight “spoiler alert” as a warning and go ahead, or spell out the niggle without any warning (not fair at all, in my opinion).

If you don’t mention the niggles in your review, is the review unbalanced and unfair to readers?

Pretty much if I review a book on this blog, I think it’s worth reading. So are the niggles I identify something that would be useful highlighting if I was a beta reader (pre-publication) but otherwise best left unshared?