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debtat2's review against another edition
5.0
Set in the 1590’s London the story is told from the very different view points of 2 women, Mary and Cat, once like sisters but now accomplices to the murder of Cats husband and worlds apart until fate brings them back together changing their lives yet agin.
There is a lot of attention to detail in the descriptions of the streets of London and the parlours of the upper class, there is one part that especially stands out for me for the authenticity and that was the preparations that the household went to for a grand party. The food made me feel a wee bit queasy! Roasted Porpoise!! Yuck! I’d never heard that one before, mind you I did have a bit of a blonde moment and for some reason I thought that was a hedgehog!! The only explanation i can offer in my defence was that it was about 4am and I’d had no sleep! 🙂
Anyway, after googling roast porpoise I now know that is a type of whale that looks similar to a dolphin. And who said reading fiction novels can’t be educational!
As for the 2 protagonists they are both fascinating and a little bit sinister in their own individual and combined personalities. A psychiatrist would have a field day with these 2. The story line with the curse is threaded throughout the entire story along with an old wooden doll that’s plain creepy!
This book offers so much as well as being a historical novel, there is elements of romance, mystery, thriller, crime and even a twist of the paranormal. So all in all this will definitely appeal to a wide variety of audience.
I think House of Shadows is still my favourite of Pamela Hartshorne’s novels but this one is almost up there with it. If you have read her previous books then you will enjoy this one and it is most certainly one to look out for.
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely positively YES!
One to put on everyone’s TBR list!
There is a lot of attention to detail in the descriptions of the streets of London and the parlours of the upper class, there is one part that especially stands out for me for the authenticity and that was the preparations that the household went to for a grand party. The food made me feel a wee bit queasy! Roasted Porpoise!! Yuck! I’d never heard that one before, mind you I did have a bit of a blonde moment and for some reason I thought that was a hedgehog!! The only explanation i can offer in my defence was that it was about 4am and I’d had no sleep! 🙂
Anyway, after googling roast porpoise I now know that is a type of whale that looks similar to a dolphin. And who said reading fiction novels can’t be educational!
As for the 2 protagonists they are both fascinating and a little bit sinister in their own individual and combined personalities. A psychiatrist would have a field day with these 2. The story line with the curse is threaded throughout the entire story along with an old wooden doll that’s plain creepy!
This book offers so much as well as being a historical novel, there is elements of romance, mystery, thriller, crime and even a twist of the paranormal. So all in all this will definitely appeal to a wide variety of audience.
I think House of Shadows is still my favourite of Pamela Hartshorne’s novels but this one is almost up there with it. If you have read her previous books then you will enjoy this one and it is most certainly one to look out for.
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely positively YES!
One to put on everyone’s TBR list!
thebooktrail88's review against another edition
4.0
Visit the locations in the novel TheBookTrail.com
A great historical read
In fact this novel is going to linger for me. It’s a new direction for the author as there's no time slip but a very evocative story set in the past. A direction I hope she repeats!
Two brilliantly strong lead characters and what it meant at the time if you were trying to escape a childhood curse.....
Yup really enjoyed this one.
Two great characters in this one and both with voices in the past. Mary and Cat were once like sisters but life separates them and sends them on different paths. The story and mystery depends a lot on the social habits and ideas at the time, how curses were seen as having a real impact on your life, behaviour and how they could control your life. Superstition it might be, but life depended on these kinds of thought processes at the time and this novel really brings this out.
As well as the detail on the mores of the time, there’s also happily what Pamela does so well – evocative descriptions of cobbled streets, market squares, and the gaps between rich and poor. Oh and there’s the food! So much variety and a great way of learning about the habits and traditions then.
As with any story of a curse, there’s a definite level of creepiness in the story and this is deftly threaded throughout the story. Mary is a character to watch and I felt I’d been on the entire journey with her – dizzying thoughts of what might happen to her and everything!
Oh and I won’t forget Peg in a hurry. In fact this novel is going to linger for me. It’s a new direction for the author but one I hope she repeats!
emsco91's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
katlinmorris's review against another edition
3.0
3.5, I think. This was, surely, a book. I'm not sure if I liked it. Review might follow if I figure it out.
victoria80's review against another edition
3.0
It’s really more a 3.5. The characters were interesting but the plot was predictable and I didn’t really get an Elizabethan feel from the book. I honestly kept thinking I was reading in historic Holland. I don’t know why this was in my head. Possibly more could have been made of the city of London. I love historical fiction and I especially love London as the setting but I’m afraid this book was disappointing, well written but ultimately disappointing.
emmals1992's review against another edition
5.0
The Elizabethan thriller The Cursed Wife by Pamela Hartshorne is a change of direction from my usual genre. With the historical setting, I couldn’t resist. It tells the story of Mary and Cat as we slowly uncover their past and understand why their lives are irreconcilably intertwined. The theme of Mary being cursed follows her throughout the novel and is tied to the doll she keeps with her; this doll seems to have powers of its own and changes its expression to foreshadow events, a subtle but terrifying addition.
The trouble that Mary finds herself in is mostly not her fault and you really for her as she struggles to keep her perfect life together. It’s a story of self-fulfilling prophecy. The ending is at once heart-breaking yet undeniable; it also leaves the story open for a potential sequel. Cat is a character I find myself disliking the whole way through; I couldn’t find any redeemable qualities in her but could understand her situation at times.
The story is told from the perspective of the two women and it’s a great insight to see their different takes on the same event. If you like historical fiction and thrillers, I’d definitely recommend this book.
The trouble that Mary finds herself in is mostly not her fault and you really for her as she struggles to keep her perfect life together. It’s a story of self-fulfilling prophecy. The ending is at once heart-breaking yet undeniable; it also leaves the story open for a potential sequel. Cat is a character I find myself disliking the whole way through; I couldn’t find any redeemable qualities in her but could understand her situation at times.
The story is told from the perspective of the two women and it’s a great insight to see their different takes on the same event. If you like historical fiction and thrillers, I’d definitely recommend this book.
thegoblinempress's review against another edition
2.0
Check out this review and more on my blog!
I received an eARC of The Cursed Wife from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
TW: I will be discussing sexual assault in this review.
Tell me a book is a thriller set in Elizabethan England and it’s a book I want to get my hands on. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy The Cursed Wife as much as I thought I would.
This novel has a lot of potential. Mary lives in Elizabethan London with her merchant husband, their children and their servants, but that’s not the name they know her by. To them, Mary is Catherine; a noblewoman who joined their household years before as a widow with an infant daughter.
After an accident in Mary’s youth, she has convinced herself she’s been cursed and is going to end her life on the gallows. When she’s unexpectedly reunited with her childhood friend, Cat, who knows her secret, things begin to spiral out of control.
The Cursed Wife is fairly short as historical fiction goes – my edition is just under 250 pages – so it’s a quick read, which works for the kind of novel that it’s trying to be. I love a good chunky book, but I tend to prefer shorter thrillers because it’s hard to maintain the suspense throughout 400 pages of novel, and The Cursed Wife gets into the nitty gritty of the story almost immediately.
It doesn’t hurt that Hartshorne’s writing is very readable. There were certain ways in which she brought the Elizabethan era to life, whether it was mentioning a certain type of clothing or how Mary bought her goods at the marketplace, that I really enjoyed, but I can’t say I felt like I was in London. I’m not actually the biggest fan of London as a setting simply because it’s probably the most used setting when it comes to books set in the UK – especially historical fiction – and I’d much rather read about somewhere else, but if an author is going to choose London as their setting I’d like to feel like I’m in London.
Personally I felt like The Cursed Wife could have been set anywhere, and with Mary as a prosperous merchant’s wife I got more of a Netherlands feel than a London feel, which just goes to show how much of an impact the setting in Jessie Burton’s [b:The Miniaturist|21070479|The Miniaturist|Jessie Burton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408440609l/21070479._SY75_.jpg|25328659] had on me.
My biggest problem with this novel, though, was the characters. Mary I liked; my favourite parts of the novel were the quiet, domestic scenes when she shared what her duties were as a wife and mother. In a way I wish Hartshorne had written a historical romance novel because I was so intrigued by the relationship between Mary and her husband, Gabriel, and I’d’ve been happy to read 250 pages of Mary pottering about her house because the domestic scenes were the scenes Hartshorne wrote best.
Instead we have a historical thriller about the toxic relationship between Mary and Cat and, honestly, I found the whole thing incredibly frustrating. It’s easy to see where the novel’s going; from the prologue we know one of the women is dead by the end of the novel and it’s easy to see how we get to that turn of events fairly early on. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it was done well, but I found it hard to believe that Mary could be so naive.
On top of that, Cat is awful. I love unlikable women so Cat should have been the kind of character I could get behind, especially because I’m sure we’re not supposed to warm to her, but she’s not unlikable – she’s just plain nasty. Hartshorne tries to make us understand her, and there are things she goes through that will make any reader empathise with her, but for the most part she’s horrid to the point of feeling like a caricature rather than a character. I couldn’t understand how Mary didn’t see right through her.
I’m so bored of historical fiction involving women being mean to each other and sexual assault. Sexual assault is an important topic and there are so many authors who handle it brilliantly, but I didn’t like how it was handled here. There’s a fairly graphic scene of sexual assault – by which I mean the whole event is described to us, rather than hinted at – so please keep that in mind if you find that kind of content difficult to read.
What frustrated me, though, is that the man who carries out the assault is yet another caricature I often see in historical fiction and, while I don’t doubt that men like him did (and still do) exist, I think it’s lazy to fall back on this trope. Anyone who has experienced sexual assault has dealt with it in a different way, and I don’t want to suggest for a moment that the way Mary overcomes it is disingenuous, but it seemed brushed under the carpet far too easily for the sake of the plot.
Later, when Mary is happily married, she tells the reader how passionately she and Gabriel love one another. Considering we got a full description of her assault, I think it’s a shame we didn’t get a whole scene of her having happy, consensual sex with her husband. Not only to take the sting out of how horrid that earlier scene is to read, but also because there was the chance there for Hartshorne to explore how Gabriel makes sex safe and enjoyable for her when her only previous experience has been violent.
Sadly there’s no time for any of this nuance because the plot rushes along so quickly that the characters are running to keep up. They tell the reader a lot of things to make up for the fact that Hartshorne has no time to show it, so by the time the novel reaches its conclusion I was left rather underwhelmed. What’s most frustrating is that there are the bones of a really good novel in here, but it’s not the novel we get.
Ultimately I wish Hartshorne had given me a historical romance about Mary and Gabriel, the only characters in the book who actually feel real, rather than a thriller about women’s friendship turned sour. Women being unnecessarily mean to one another in a setting that’s already inherently misogynist is not something I’m interested in reading anymore.
I received an eARC of The Cursed Wife from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
TW: I will be discussing sexual assault in this review.
Tell me a book is a thriller set in Elizabethan England and it’s a book I want to get my hands on. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy The Cursed Wife as much as I thought I would.
This novel has a lot of potential. Mary lives in Elizabethan London with her merchant husband, their children and their servants, but that’s not the name they know her by. To them, Mary is Catherine; a noblewoman who joined their household years before as a widow with an infant daughter.
After an accident in Mary’s youth, she has convinced herself she’s been cursed and is going to end her life on the gallows. When she’s unexpectedly reunited with her childhood friend, Cat, who knows her secret, things begin to spiral out of control.
The Cursed Wife is fairly short as historical fiction goes – my edition is just under 250 pages – so it’s a quick read, which works for the kind of novel that it’s trying to be. I love a good chunky book, but I tend to prefer shorter thrillers because it’s hard to maintain the suspense throughout 400 pages of novel, and The Cursed Wife gets into the nitty gritty of the story almost immediately.
It doesn’t hurt that Hartshorne’s writing is very readable. There were certain ways in which she brought the Elizabethan era to life, whether it was mentioning a certain type of clothing or how Mary bought her goods at the marketplace, that I really enjoyed, but I can’t say I felt like I was in London. I’m not actually the biggest fan of London as a setting simply because it’s probably the most used setting when it comes to books set in the UK – especially historical fiction – and I’d much rather read about somewhere else, but if an author is going to choose London as their setting I’d like to feel like I’m in London.
Personally I felt like The Cursed Wife could have been set anywhere, and with Mary as a prosperous merchant’s wife I got more of a Netherlands feel than a London feel, which just goes to show how much of an impact the setting in Jessie Burton’s [b:The Miniaturist|21070479|The Miniaturist|Jessie Burton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408440609l/21070479._SY75_.jpg|25328659] had on me.
My biggest problem with this novel, though, was the characters. Mary I liked; my favourite parts of the novel were the quiet, domestic scenes when she shared what her duties were as a wife and mother. In a way I wish Hartshorne had written a historical romance novel because I was so intrigued by the relationship between Mary and her husband, Gabriel, and I’d’ve been happy to read 250 pages of Mary pottering about her house because the domestic scenes were the scenes Hartshorne wrote best.
Instead we have a historical thriller about the toxic relationship between Mary and Cat and, honestly, I found the whole thing incredibly frustrating. It’s easy to see where the novel’s going; from the prologue we know one of the women is dead by the end of the novel and it’s easy to see how we get to that turn of events fairly early on. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it was done well, but I found it hard to believe that Mary could be so naive.
On top of that, Cat is awful. I love unlikable women so Cat should have been the kind of character I could get behind, especially because I’m sure we’re not supposed to warm to her, but she’s not unlikable – she’s just plain nasty. Hartshorne tries to make us understand her, and there are things she goes through that will make any reader empathise with her, but for the most part she’s horrid to the point of feeling like a caricature rather than a character. I couldn’t understand how Mary didn’t see right through her.
I’m so bored of historical fiction involving women being mean to each other and sexual assault. Sexual assault is an important topic and there are so many authors who handle it brilliantly, but I didn’t like how it was handled here. There’s a fairly graphic scene of sexual assault – by which I mean the whole event is described to us, rather than hinted at – so please keep that in mind if you find that kind of content difficult to read.
What frustrated me, though, is that the man who carries out the assault is yet another caricature I often see in historical fiction and, while I don’t doubt that men like him did (and still do) exist, I think it’s lazy to fall back on this trope. Anyone who has experienced sexual assault has dealt with it in a different way, and I don’t want to suggest for a moment that the way Mary overcomes it is disingenuous, but it seemed brushed under the carpet far too easily for the sake of the plot.
Later, when Mary is happily married, she tells the reader how passionately she and Gabriel love one another. Considering we got a full description of her assault, I think it’s a shame we didn’t get a whole scene of her having happy, consensual sex with her husband. Not only to take the sting out of how horrid that earlier scene is to read, but also because there was the chance there for Hartshorne to explore how Gabriel makes sex safe and enjoyable for her when her only previous experience has been violent.
Sadly there’s no time for any of this nuance because the plot rushes along so quickly that the characters are running to keep up. They tell the reader a lot of things to make up for the fact that Hartshorne has no time to show it, so by the time the novel reaches its conclusion I was left rather underwhelmed. What’s most frustrating is that there are the bones of a really good novel in here, but it’s not the novel we get.
Ultimately I wish Hartshorne had given me a historical romance about Mary and Gabriel, the only characters in the book who actually feel real, rather than a thriller about women’s friendship turned sour. Women being unnecessarily mean to one another in a setting that’s already inherently misogynist is not something I’m interested in reading anymore.
thegoblinempress's review
2.0
Check out this review and more on my blog!
I received an eARC of The Cursed Wife from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
TW: I will be discussing sexual assault in this review.
Tell me a book is a thriller set in Elizabethan England and it’s a book I want to get my hands on. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy The Cursed Wife as much as I thought I would.
This novel has a lot of potential. Mary lives in Elizabethan London with her merchant husband, their children and their servants, but that’s not the name they know her by. To them, Mary is Catherine; a noblewoman who joined their household years before as a widow with an infant daughter.
After an accident in Mary’s youth, she has convinced herself she’s been cursed and is going to end her life on the gallows. When she’s unexpectedly reunited with her childhood friend, Cat, who knows her secret, things begin to spiral out of control.
The Cursed Wife is fairly short as historical fiction goes – my edition is just under 250 pages – so it’s a quick read, which works for the kind of novel that it’s trying to be. I love a good chunky book, but I tend to prefer shorter thrillers because it’s hard to maintain the suspense throughout 400 pages of novel, and The Cursed Wife gets into the nitty gritty of the story almost immediately.
It doesn’t hurt that Hartshorne’s writing is very readable. There were certain ways in which she brought the Elizabethan era to life, whether it was mentioning a certain type of clothing or how Mary bought her goods at the marketplace, that I really enjoyed, but I can’t say I felt like I was in London. I’m not actually the biggest fan of London as a setting simply because it’s probably the most used setting when it comes to books set in the UK – especially historical fiction – and I’d much rather read about somewhere else, but if an author is going to choose London as their setting I’d like to feel like I’m in London.
Personally I felt like The Cursed Wife could have been set anywhere, and with Mary as a prosperous merchant’s wife I got more of a Netherlands feel than a London feel, which just goes to show how much of an impact the setting in Jessie Burton’s [b:The Miniaturist|21070479|The Miniaturist|Jessie Burton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408440609l/21070479._SY75_.jpg|25328659] had on me.
My biggest problem with this novel, though, was the characters. Mary I liked; my favourite parts of the novel were the quiet, domestic scenes when she shared what her duties were as a wife and mother. In a way I wish Hartshorne had written a historical romance novel because I was so intrigued by the relationship between Mary and her husband, Gabriel, and I’d’ve been happy to read 250 pages of Mary pottering about her house because the domestic scenes were the scenes Hartshorne wrote best.
Instead we have a historical thriller about the toxic relationship between Mary and Cat and, honestly, I found the whole thing incredibly frustrating. It’s easy to see where the novel’s going; from the prologue we know one of the women is dead by the end of the novel and it’s easy to see how we get to that turn of events fairly early on. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it was done well, but I found it hard to believe that Mary could be so naive.
On top of that, Cat is awful. I love unlikable women so Cat should have been the kind of character I could get behind, especially because I’m sure we’re not supposed to warm to her, but she’s not unlikable – she’s just plain nasty. Hartshorne tries to make us understand her, and there are things she goes through that will make any reader empathise with her, but for the most part she’s horrid to the point of feeling like a caricature rather than a character. I couldn’t understand how Mary didn’t see right through her.
I’m so bored of historical fiction involving women being mean to each other and sexual assault. Sexual assault is an important topic and there are so many authors who handle it brilliantly, but I didn’t like how it was handled here. There’s a fairly graphic scene of sexual assault – by which I mean the whole event is described to us, rather than hinted at – so please keep that in mind if you find that kind of content difficult to read.
What frustrated me, though, is that the man who carries out the assault is yet another caricature I often see in historical fiction and, while I don’t doubt that men like him did (and still do) exist, I think it’s lazy to fall back on this trope. Anyone who has experienced sexual assault has dealt with it in a different way, and I don’t want to suggest for a moment that the way Mary overcomes it is disingenuous, but it seemed brushed under the carpet far too easily for the sake of the plot.
Later, when Mary is happily married, she tells the reader how passionately she and Gabriel love one another. Considering we got a full description of her assault, I think it’s a shame we didn’t get a whole scene of her having happy, consensual sex with her husband. Not only to take the sting out of how horrid that earlier scene is to read, but also because there was the chance there for Hartshorne to explore how Gabriel makes sex safe and enjoyable for her when her only previous experience has been violent.
Sadly there’s no time for any of this nuance because the plot rushes along so quickly that the characters are running to keep up. They tell the reader a lot of things to make up for the fact that Hartshorne has no time to show it, so by the time the novel reaches its conclusion I was left rather underwhelmed. What’s most frustrating is that there are the bones of a really good novel in here, but it’s not the novel we get.
Ultimately I wish Hartshorne had given me a historical romance about Mary and Gabriel, the only characters in the book who actually feel real, rather than a thriller about women’s friendship turned sour. Women being unnecessarily mean to one another in a setting that’s already inherently misogynist is not something I’m interested in reading anymore.
I received an eARC of The Cursed Wife from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
TW: I will be discussing sexual assault in this review.
Tell me a book is a thriller set in Elizabethan England and it’s a book I want to get my hands on. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy The Cursed Wife as much as I thought I would.
This novel has a lot of potential. Mary lives in Elizabethan London with her merchant husband, their children and their servants, but that’s not the name they know her by. To them, Mary is Catherine; a noblewoman who joined their household years before as a widow with an infant daughter.
After an accident in Mary’s youth, she has convinced herself she’s been cursed and is going to end her life on the gallows. When she’s unexpectedly reunited with her childhood friend, Cat, who knows her secret, things begin to spiral out of control.
The Cursed Wife is fairly short as historical fiction goes – my edition is just under 250 pages – so it’s a quick read, which works for the kind of novel that it’s trying to be. I love a good chunky book, but I tend to prefer shorter thrillers because it’s hard to maintain the suspense throughout 400 pages of novel, and The Cursed Wife gets into the nitty gritty of the story almost immediately.
It doesn’t hurt that Hartshorne’s writing is very readable. There were certain ways in which she brought the Elizabethan era to life, whether it was mentioning a certain type of clothing or how Mary bought her goods at the marketplace, that I really enjoyed, but I can’t say I felt like I was in London. I’m not actually the biggest fan of London as a setting simply because it’s probably the most used setting when it comes to books set in the UK – especially historical fiction – and I’d much rather read about somewhere else, but if an author is going to choose London as their setting I’d like to feel like I’m in London.
Personally I felt like The Cursed Wife could have been set anywhere, and with Mary as a prosperous merchant’s wife I got more of a Netherlands feel than a London feel, which just goes to show how much of an impact the setting in Jessie Burton’s [b:The Miniaturist|21070479|The Miniaturist|Jessie Burton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408440609l/21070479._SY75_.jpg|25328659] had on me.
My biggest problem with this novel, though, was the characters. Mary I liked; my favourite parts of the novel were the quiet, domestic scenes when she shared what her duties were as a wife and mother. In a way I wish Hartshorne had written a historical romance novel because I was so intrigued by the relationship between Mary and her husband, Gabriel, and I’d’ve been happy to read 250 pages of Mary pottering about her house because the domestic scenes were the scenes Hartshorne wrote best.
Instead we have a historical thriller about the toxic relationship between Mary and Cat and, honestly, I found the whole thing incredibly frustrating. It’s easy to see where the novel’s going; from the prologue we know one of the women is dead by the end of the novel and it’s easy to see how we get to that turn of events fairly early on. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it was done well, but I found it hard to believe that Mary could be so naive.
On top of that, Cat is awful. I love unlikable women so Cat should have been the kind of character I could get behind, especially because I’m sure we’re not supposed to warm to her, but she’s not unlikable – she’s just plain nasty. Hartshorne tries to make us understand her, and there are things she goes through that will make any reader empathise with her, but for the most part she’s horrid to the point of feeling like a caricature rather than a character. I couldn’t understand how Mary didn’t see right through her.
I’m so bored of historical fiction involving women being mean to each other and sexual assault. Sexual assault is an important topic and there are so many authors who handle it brilliantly, but I didn’t like how it was handled here. There’s a fairly graphic scene of sexual assault – by which I mean the whole event is described to us, rather than hinted at – so please keep that in mind if you find that kind of content difficult to read.
What frustrated me, though, is that the man who carries out the assault is yet another caricature I often see in historical fiction and, while I don’t doubt that men like him did (and still do) exist, I think it’s lazy to fall back on this trope. Anyone who has experienced sexual assault has dealt with it in a different way, and I don’t want to suggest for a moment that the way Mary overcomes it is disingenuous, but it seemed brushed under the carpet far too easily for the sake of the plot.
Later, when Mary is happily married, she tells the reader how passionately she and Gabriel love one another. Considering we got a full description of her assault, I think it’s a shame we didn’t get a whole scene of her having happy, consensual sex with her husband. Not only to take the sting out of how horrid that earlier scene is to read, but also because there was the chance there for Hartshorne to explore how Gabriel makes sex safe and enjoyable for her when her only previous experience has been violent.
Sadly there’s no time for any of this nuance because the plot rushes along so quickly that the characters are running to keep up. They tell the reader a lot of things to make up for the fact that Hartshorne has no time to show it, so by the time the novel reaches its conclusion I was left rather underwhelmed. What’s most frustrating is that there are the bones of a really good novel in here, but it’s not the novel we get.
Ultimately I wish Hartshorne had given me a historical romance about Mary and Gabriel, the only characters in the book who actually feel real, rather than a thriller about women’s friendship turned sour. Women being unnecessarily mean to one another in a setting that’s already inherently misogynist is not something I’m interested in reading anymore.
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