A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White

[bookofsecrets]

For me one of the major challenges of putting together a cohesive and realistic piece of writing is timing. Concepts that seem well shaped and perfectly placed while they are being written always seem to end up jammed together and rushed upon a second look. When I am reading something by a published author, then, I expect to be able to revel in the natural, well-paced unfolding of events. Unfortunately, this was not the case with A Soft Place to Land. The first third of the time line took up half the book and the remaining two sections felt rushed, almost like a afterthought. The additional fallout to this same issue was that the relationship between the main characters- two sisters with a complicated relationship- goes downhill unbelievably fast and without much lead in. As a woman who has a complicated relationship with her own sister, I could fill in some of the gaps...but as a reader, I'd have loved to see exactly how the conflict unfolded within the girls.
I'm not saying this is a bad book- the characters are fun to get to know if you can keep up with the breakneck speed with which they grow and change. I just think the author tried to convey too much in too few pages. Either that or I'm just being peevish about this. That wouldn't exactly be surprising.

Read and judge for yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Place-Land-Novel/dp/1416558691