Sarah Perry's 'The Essex Serpent'.

Most of the time, I read on my commute to work, swapping the depths of the Northern Line for a story to take me away from the armpit my face is inevitably pushed into.

Isn't it odd, how strangers come over the threshold and you never know what they might become.

I adore stories which have a slowness to them, that take their time to tell a story. Somehow they become more intimate and you understand a character more fully, but it is certainly a fine balance. Apart from a slow middle passage where not a lot happens, The Essex Serpent tells the story of an unlikely friendship.

What makes this more interesting for me is the fact that both Cora and Will are complete opposites, with one shunning religion, and the other being a vicar. I see some of my own conflict between Christianity and agnosticism in both characters, pulling at different view points, both being right, whilst also being wrong.

They are drawn together by the Essex Serpent, a folklore about a beast living in the Blackwater, and it is the perfect device to bring so many characters together.

Perhaps my favourite thing about this book is the relationship between Cora's son, Francis, and Will's wife, Stella. For they understand each other on a level unlike any other, and there is such a beauty in the world they share. The idea of finding treasure in smaller things in life for both of them, especially with Stella's desire for the colour blue, is something most of us are too busy rushing around to notice.

It takes me back to watching Amélie, where she likes to plunge her hand deep into a sack of grain, or skim stones on canals. I yearn to spend more time looking for smaller pleasures in life, and I fail so often.

Most of all though, this book is about the chance and strangeness of meeting strangers. It plays on the idea that once someone has come into your life, they is a huge variety of paths that relationship may follow. What we do might not always be correct, but in life sinning is natural. It is truly our ability to deal with our choices which makes us stronger.