Sunday, September 29, 2013

An Advanced Reader's Copy - ARC

Bellman and Black

Bellman & Black

By: Diane Setterfield

Genre: Historical fiction/Paranormal

Pages: 336

Published: 2013

Read: September

2 out of 5


I was very excited to read this ARC since I loved Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale.  I felt that premise of the novel was confusing or at least needed more explanation.  There were a lot of characters introduced and the relationships between them were difficult to keep straight.  After I slowed down and grasped all the intricacies; it did get interesting.  I was finally engrossed, but then the story started dragging and didn’t stop.  While I desired a slower pace at the beginning, and I’m a “prolific” reader, the middle portion needed some weeding.  I loved the characters and family relationships and would have enjoyed more details on the Bellman family history.  Instead the entire middle was dedicated to describing dyes and threads for hundreds of pages.  While necessary for the plot, I would have enjoyed more of a connection to the characters and more appearances from Black to keep the story from putting me to sleep.

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