Review of Juliet Dark's 'The Water Witch'
I had a pretty good time reading this. It was a little slow at first, but it quickly picked up. Most of the individual scenes were descriptive and easy to visualize. The characterization impressed me greatly.
I could barely put it down. That said, I found myself skimming through the last third of the book, despite the fact that it contained what I could tell was an effectively charged conflict and resolution.
I've thought about why I lost interest, and realized that it was because of the presence of multiple secondary and tertiary characters, all with names. It creates an alphabet soup effect, making my brain give up and say, 'to heck with this' and rush ahead.
My other complaint has to do with what I like to call the trompe l'oeil effect. The book is scattered with references to things in our world, including numerous companies and a former presidential candidate. Put that in a setting with anthropomorphic mythical creatures and magic right out of your basic fantasy novel, and I get the impression of a room with an artist's attempt to fool the viewer into thinking there's a cool landscape on the other side of the wall by including a realistic deck chair in the painting. To me, that comes off as somewhat tacky.
All in all, I think I would recommend this book... but only to someone who is particularly interested in spirit lovers as a plot element. Without that plot line in it, I doubt they would be missing anything.
NetGalley lent me the copy of the book for free in exchange for this feedback.
I could barely put it down. That said, I found myself skimming through the last third of the book, despite the fact that it contained what I could tell was an effectively charged conflict and resolution.
I've thought about why I lost interest, and realized that it was because of the presence of multiple secondary and tertiary characters, all with names. It creates an alphabet soup effect, making my brain give up and say, 'to heck with this' and rush ahead.
My other complaint has to do with what I like to call the trompe l'oeil effect. The book is scattered with references to things in our world, including numerous companies and a former presidential candidate. Put that in a setting with anthropomorphic mythical creatures and magic right out of your basic fantasy novel, and I get the impression of a room with an artist's attempt to fool the viewer into thinking there's a cool landscape on the other side of the wall by including a realistic deck chair in the painting. To me, that comes off as somewhat tacky.
All in all, I think I would recommend this book... but only to someone who is particularly interested in spirit lovers as a plot element. Without that plot line in it, I doubt they would be missing anything.
NetGalley lent me the copy of the book for free in exchange for this feedback.