Reviews

The Elephant Girl by Henriette Gyland

mistysbookspace's review

4.0

Thank you to the author for sending me an ecopy of this book via Rachel's Random Resources in exchange for my honest review.

This was a romantic suspense. I don't read this genre all that often, but I love romance and the synopsis intrigued me, so I decided to review it. It's very slow going but at the same time it thoroughly sucked me in. In the first chapter we are introduced to Helen when she is 5 years old, and her mother is murdered after that it jumps 20 years in the future when Helen wants to learn more about her mother's murder, and she wants to get revenge. 

Like I said it's slow going so we learn a little bit here and there all throughout the book. When I read genres like this where they combine romance with suspense or romance with a thriller etc. I only really look for one thing and that is whether or not the author managed to balance out the 2 different genres. I definitely thought it was well balanced, but it didn't combine them very well. What I mean is it was like so many chapters it would be all about the romance and then it would switch to some chapters with the suspense aspect, and it did that all throughout the book. 

Let's talk about the romance aspect really quick. First off, they are immediately into each other before they have even met face to face. It's a see each other from across the room type of thing and they care about what the other person thinks of them already. I did like Helen and Jason together at times but there were times that he did things that contradicted his overall personality, and it just made me not like him so much and in turn it made me not so sure about the romance. 

Now to the suspense. This is what kept me reading the book which if you know me you know I love romance so the fact that I wasn't sold on the romance is huge. Anyways as I've mentioned I was immediately sucked in. I wanted to know what happened to Helen's mother and why Helen was treated the way she was afterwards. Because it was so slow, I could only read so much at a time but when I picked it up, I never wanted to put it down and when I did have to put it down, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had my own suspects, but I was never able to narrow it down to one person until it was revealed to me. I did suspect this person and I have to say it didn't really surprise me. 

The ending felt a little rushed and after Helen's growth throughout the book her decision seemed a little out of character. It seemed like something the old Helen would have done not the new Helen. 

If you like romantic suspense that is slow paced with some twists thrown in, I definitely recommend you read this. Even if you aren't a fan of slow paced books, I think the suspense will hook you and make you want to keep reading it anyways so give it a try. 

judenoseinabook's review

2.0

OK; enjoyed the story. It had some interesting twists and turns. Thought it was written in quite a chic lit style. I could imagine it serialised in a magazine.