Family Reunion

Family Reunion by Jill Metcalf

No Stars

I was barely able to make it through this book, not sure why I kept trying. I suppose I thought it might get better, but it didn't.

There was a lot of head-hopping, switching point-of-view frequently and without warning.

The plot was thin and any conflict that came up was resolved within a paragraph or two, there was no sense of over-arching story. The book had no structure, the story meandering all over the place without coming to a real point.

The dialogue was very stiff and not believable, a trap that historic fiction can easily fall into.

The hero was difficult to take seriously, since he peppered his speech with affectionate terms in just about every single sentence he spoke. He also was used as the vehicle to describe the heroine, which meant that he was observing how in fashion her dress was and the hem line and style of ribbons, which made him seem like he couldn't possibly be a straight male.

In devo terms, the hero is paralyzed in an accident where a horse drawing a carriage got startled by some hooligans. Leaving aside the historical unlikeliness of him surviving with such an injury, the book glosses over too much. There are too-easy solutions for any difficulty that might arise. I didn't find any dev thrill at all, but that might be because I was already too frustrated by the writing and not able to get immersed in the story.