A review by ashleyfuhr
The London Restoration by Rachel McMillan

2.0

I can truly appreciate the amount of research that went into this book. The details are beautifully descriptive, and, at times, I almost felt like I was walking the streets of London. I truly did love the idea of Brent and Diana’s characters. I wanted to love their love story. That being said, I felt the characters really lacked development, and that the book was more focused on the scenery (which really was great!). Much of their relationship in the story focused on the past or the strain and the process to healing seemed much too fast. Certain plot points didn’t seem believable or rational, so the movement of the story felt stilted and disjointed at times. About 40% in I did start to like it a lot better and thought we’d finally hit our stride, but it stalled out again near the end. I felt like this book was trying to be too many things and you got lost in the weeds versus just enjoying the story for what it was. It was if the author forced the characters instead of letting them “write themselves”. This was my first book by Rachel McMillan, but based on her following, I would be willing to try another. I’ve only heard great things about her books. I thought this was so close to a stellar read, but it just missed the mark for me.
I listened to this book on audio. While I love a good British accent when you have a story based in Britain, I didn’t think this narrator was quite expressive enough. She captured some of the characters, but not all, and that didn’t help the flat pace of the plot.
I received an ARC of this audiobook via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.