First reader reviews.

I stopped reading commercial reviews of my books years ago. Having been commissioned to write a lot of book reviews in newspapers and magazines, I came to understand how often they were crafted to serve the editorial line. They're often more about supporting the publication’s ideology than engaging with the actual book.

But reader reviews? I still dive into those. Because every now and then, you strike gold: a reader who finds something you didn’t even realise you’d put there, or who connects with the story in a way you couldn’t have planned if you tried.

There are as many editions of a book as there are readers – a thousand quiet rewrites, one in every head and heart, waiting to be discovered in the margins of a review thread.

The first reader reviews for these very first novels have started rolling in — and I couldn’t resist having a peek. These aren’t the deep-dive, pull-it-apart-and-analyse-it kind of reviews. They’re pure I had a blast reading this energy. And honestly? I love that. It’s better than a royalty payment. (Mostly because it arrives quicker and Jeff Bezos doesn’t take a cut.)

One of the things we’ll do here on L2L is spotlight some of the more interesting reviews — the ones that find unexpected meaning, or call out what really made the book work for them. But today? Today is just about celebrating a beginning: the first readers, the first impressions, the first “hey, this was fun.”

And that feels worth raising a glass to.