Book Review Rating ♥♥
Mabel Dagmar
is a plain teenage girl who is befriended by her beautiful, rich, blue blooded
college roommate, Genevra Katherine Winslow who is known by the diminutive Ev
for no obvious reason and no reason is ever given. Ev invites Mabel to spend
the summer with her in her newly inherited house called Bittersweet at Winloch,
an estate owned by Ev’s parents and where all the Winslow family spend their
summer.
Mabel begins
to realise that there are dark secrets at the heart of the Winslow family and
decides to investigate the Winslow past. However, Mabel also harbours a secret
which is as dark as any that haunt the Winslow family.
Bittersweet
is a competently written novel with the author having a good grasp of
characterization, dialogue and plot. However, the novel is 150 pages to long
and very bland in its style and substance. The novel’s ‘twists’ that are
straightened out eventually are all obvious to anyone who is well read. The
secrets are plot twists that have been used too often not only in books but in
films especially in recent years. One twist concerns a Van Gogh painting that
had the family had the sense to simply recover the back of the painting this
particular secret would never have been exposed.
Too often
the author struggles for an analogy or simile she hasn’t already utilised and
in doing so becomes repetitive. Emotions and feelings wash over the characters too
often in the form of water and its many guises; a lake, a river, rain. Allusions
are writ large. Mabel’s favourite book is Jane Eyre. She is always attempting
to read Paradise Lost.
Some scenes
in the novel border on the ridiculous. Not once but twice Mabel stumbles upon
couples having sex and she is also stumbled upon while she is masturbating. A young boy stumbles across his father having sex in the bathroom. The
author wishes us to believe that a man in his seventies manages to outrun a
fit, athletic twenty something when he pursues him after said twenty something
witnesses a heinous act.
As already
mentioned the novel is far too long and is in need of a good editor. There are
too many scenes that not only slow the pace of the story but are also redundant
as they add nothing to the story’s characterization or plotlines.
Despite the
above criticisms there is a good novel struggling to get out and hopefully the
author will free that particular novel from this 400 page tome.
Advanced copy supplied by NetGalley.
Advanced copy supplied by NetGalley.
First Line - Before she loathed me, before she loved me, Generva Katherine Winslow didn't know I existed.
Memorable Line - None
Number of Pages - 400
Profanity - None
Sex Scenes - Yes
