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A review by loribulb
Secrets of the Chocolate House by Paula Brackston
3.0
So it's to be a triology, then.
This novel felt more like a vehicle to deliver information than a story in its own right. After such an intense connection with Samuel in the Found Things book, the way the relationship just petered out was a disappointing conclusion. I understood why it could not work but I was expecting a more emotional break... maybe Xanthe tested her theory of living things moving too far forward in time by accidentally taking a mouse or something forward with her in her bag, and then when it crumbled to dust, came to the painful conclusion she would never be able to travel with Samuel. I don't know. I was just expecting more.
I have two other very specific issues with the story. The first is Flora and her chronic pain. My spouse deals with chronic pain, and I grew up with a parent who experienced it in the aftermath of a car accident. The idea of "good days" is a myth; even the best days are painful. If Flora is so incapacitated by her arthritis that she must use sticks to help her walk even on flat surfaces, then the idea that she can get up the stairs and then stay upright long enough to putter and cook is pretty unrealistic. Flare ups are a thing of course, but the flare ups in the book seemed to be over with so quickly. And then Flora would be back to being cheerful; she is never snappish or short with anyone, which is unbelievable. When someone hurts ALL THE TIME, and the most basic tasks are excruciating but you just have to do them anyway, you're not always going to be kind, loving, and upbeat. So I understand why Flora has the pain (plot device) but I don't think it is portrayed correctly at all.
My other issue, and a more serious one because so much of this novel relies on it, is the way time travel is portrayed. It's a stickier subject because (of course) each author who writes about it can make up their own rules about how it works. I had a really hard time buying the concept of time passing in both the present and the past. Why couldn't Xanthe just time travel back to an earlier point in time? It's as though some kind of clock or countdown began after her first journey, as though that set a fixed point in time from which then both the progression of time in the present and past moved forward without any chance of manipulation. I love time travelling stories, and this is the first one that has given their character (who is supposed to be a time spinner- a real master!) such an inability to fold time.
Xanthe kept trying to figure out the "rate" of time for the past and the present. Like, for every 10 hours she spent in the past, one hour passes in the present. Why? It seems like you should be able to travel back to the moment you left. Same in the other direction- when she was in the present she was fretting about how much time was passing by in 1605. This made no sense. She should be able to return pretty much at any point in the past; it makes no sense to have this construct. Without it, however, this novel would have no tension or forward movement. The entire plot is based around those worries that too much time is going by in the past. Read that sentence again. The concept makes no sense. Doctor Who would laugh his/her ass off. So at the back of my mind as I was reading this installment, I was disappointed and more than a little annoyed at this forced conflict.
Tacked on to that is how she is able to transport Fairfax to his cell in the future prior to his execution. I was confused here... so the time travelling Fairfax replaced the current day Fairfax in the cell? How does that work? Did they cross timelines into the prior one where he had become an enemy of the king? If not, how could there be a "current" version of himself that went through trial and imprisonment when he had disappeared 6 years earlier when he jumped time with Xanthe? When there are two versions of a person travelling on two separate timelines and they cross, is one version supposed to supplant the other? There is the conversation with Mistress Flyte re: the chocolate pot and how two different versions of it, existing at two different points in time, cannot both travel to the same point, but she does not say what would happen if they do. So I'm still not clear on what happened with Fairfax, but it does not seem well thought out. Either I missed a lot in this story (I don't think I did) or the schematics of time travel, its overlapping issues and potential paradoxes, were not examined and clarified well.
I'd be interested to see if Liam, Xanthe's modern day love interest, is a descendent of Samuel, her 1600s love interest. That could be an interesting twist. And Harley needs to be more than the Scottish tough guy biker type with a heart of gold. I hope he gets a bit more depth in the next novel, and is not just there as an information font about such things as ley lines and local legends.
I am very interested for the next installment- what a cliffhanger ending here!
This novel felt more like a vehicle to deliver information than a story in its own right. After such an intense connection with Samuel in the Found Things book, the way the relationship just petered out was a disappointing conclusion. I understood why it could not work but I was expecting a more emotional break... maybe Xanthe tested her theory of living things moving too far forward in time by accidentally taking a mouse or something forward with her in her bag, and then when it crumbled to dust, came to the painful conclusion she would never be able to travel with Samuel. I don't know. I was just expecting more.
I have two other very specific issues with the story. The first is Flora and her chronic pain. My spouse deals with chronic pain, and I grew up with a parent who experienced it in the aftermath of a car accident. The idea of "good days" is a myth; even the best days are painful. If Flora is so incapacitated by her arthritis that she must use sticks to help her walk even on flat surfaces, then the idea that she can get up the stairs and then stay upright long enough to putter and cook is pretty unrealistic. Flare ups are a thing of course, but the flare ups in the book seemed to be over with so quickly. And then Flora would be back to being cheerful; she is never snappish or short with anyone, which is unbelievable. When someone hurts ALL THE TIME, and the most basic tasks are excruciating but you just have to do them anyway, you're not always going to be kind, loving, and upbeat. So I understand why Flora has the pain (plot device) but I don't think it is portrayed correctly at all.
My other issue, and a more serious one because so much of this novel relies on it, is the way time travel is portrayed. It's a stickier subject because (of course) each author who writes about it can make up their own rules about how it works. I had a really hard time buying the concept of time passing in both the present and the past. Why couldn't Xanthe just time travel back to an earlier point in time? It's as though some kind of clock or countdown began after her first journey, as though that set a fixed point in time from which then both the progression of time in the present and past moved forward without any chance of manipulation. I love time travelling stories, and this is the first one that has given their character (who is supposed to be a time spinner- a real master!) such an inability to fold time.
Xanthe kept trying to figure out the "rate" of time for the past and the present. Like, for every 10 hours she spent in the past, one hour passes in the present. Why? It seems like you should be able to travel back to the moment you left. Same in the other direction- when she was in the present she was fretting about how much time was passing by in 1605. This made no sense. She should be able to return pretty much at any point in the past; it makes no sense to have this construct. Without it, however, this novel would have no tension or forward movement. The entire plot is based around those worries that too much time is going by in the past. Read that sentence again. The concept makes no sense. Doctor Who would laugh his/her ass off. So at the back of my mind as I was reading this installment, I was disappointed and more than a little annoyed at this forced conflict.
Tacked on to that is how she is able to transport Fairfax to his cell in the future prior to his execution. I was confused here... so the time travelling Fairfax replaced the current day Fairfax in the cell? How does that work? Did they cross timelines into the prior one where he had become an enemy of the king? If not, how could there be a "current" version of himself that went through trial and imprisonment when he had disappeared 6 years earlier when he jumped time with Xanthe? When there are two versions of a person travelling on two separate timelines and they cross, is one version supposed to supplant the other? There is the conversation with Mistress Flyte re: the chocolate pot and how two different versions of it, existing at two different points in time, cannot both travel to the same point, but she does not say what would happen if they do. So I'm still not clear on what happened with Fairfax, but it does not seem well thought out. Either I missed a lot in this story (I don't think I did) or the schematics of time travel, its overlapping issues and potential paradoxes, were not examined and clarified well.
I'd be interested to see if Liam, Xanthe's modern day love interest, is a descendent of Samuel, her 1600s love interest. That could be an interesting twist. And Harley needs to be more than the Scottish tough guy biker type with a heart of gold. I hope he gets a bit more depth in the next novel, and is not just there as an information font about such things as ley lines and local legends.
I am very interested for the next installment- what a cliffhanger ending here!