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A review by beccak
All Other Nights by Dara Horn
4.0
Very, very good, even though I'd heard otherwise from several other friends who are (like me) big Dara Horn fans.
If you've read other Dara Horn novels, you are used to plots with lots going on - multiple viewpoint characters, post-modern reflections on the ways our lives both converge with and diverge from people of the past, and so on. All Other Nights is a much more straightforward historical romance/suspense that will leave you hanging until the end.
Our main character is Jacob, who runs away to join the Union because his father wants to force him into a good "business" marriage to a colleague with a daughter who has some kind of developmental disability. He thinks he is getting himself out of trouble, but he instead finds himself into deeper and deeper trouble. All Other Nights, could actually be used as a case study for the adage "tighten the screws on your protagonist and then tighten them some more." So much stress on the character, and so much suspense, get created through Horn's deft use of this strategy.
I had problems with the end, of the "you didn't resolve things enough" kind. The theme of the end is redemption and "teshuvah" (a Hebrew term which conflates apology, making amends, and return to a healthier relationship), but I felt that Horn needed to clarify the emotional progress/moral improvement of Jacob better. Perhaps one more chapter was needed? I actually turned the page looking for one more!
Otherwise, super excellent.
If you've read other Dara Horn novels, you are used to plots with lots going on - multiple viewpoint characters, post-modern reflections on the ways our lives both converge with and diverge from people of the past, and so on. All Other Nights is a much more straightforward historical romance/suspense that will leave you hanging until the end.
Our main character is Jacob, who runs away to join the Union because his father wants to force him into a good "business" marriage to a colleague with a daughter who has some kind of developmental disability. He thinks he is getting himself out of trouble, but he instead finds himself into deeper and deeper trouble. All Other Nights, could actually be used as a case study for the adage "tighten the screws on your protagonist and then tighten them some more." So much stress on the character, and so much suspense, get created through Horn's deft use of this strategy.
I had problems with the end, of the "you didn't resolve things enough" kind. The theme of the end is redemption and "teshuvah" (a Hebrew term which conflates apology, making amends, and return to a healthier relationship), but I felt that Horn needed to clarify the emotional progress/moral improvement of Jacob better. Perhaps one more chapter was needed? I actually turned the page looking for one more!
Otherwise, super excellent.