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sarah1984 's review for:
The Butterfly Garden
by Annette Blair
I read this for the URR 2017 New Year's Reading Challenge prompt 'An Amish Romance'
17/2 - Okay, so my first experience of 'Amish' romance didn't go too badly. The religiosity wasn't too overt (as a well-read atheist I know many bible stories, but don't enjoy having the themes shoved in my face so I was pleased about that), in fact for the first 30% you'd hardly know it was set in an Amish community. It could have been any close-knit community in Midwest 1880s. It wasn't until the bishop forced Sara and Adam to get married or face the shunning of the entire community that hints of Amishness appeared.
There were a lot of punctuation problems, mostly speech marks related - speech marks for internal dialogue, none for conversations, an opening set but no closing and vice versa - there was barely a page that was spared the curse of the incorrectly placed speech mark.
I also noticed a couple of strangely described situations where I questioned Blair's understanding of simple terms
'...until a milk stream pierced her cheek and dripped down her face.' from page 103
Has Sara got dangerously thin skin or does that cow udder have the propulsion of a rocket?
and the time on page 148 when Adam's daughters suggested that nettles be one of the flowers they planted in their new garden the next spring. Being Australian I've never actually seen a nettle, but Wikipedia makes them sound like a plant to be avoided - "bear many stinging hairs whose tips come off when touched, transforming the hair into a needle that can inject several chemicals" (I wouldn't be planting that in any yard with little kids around to get spiked).
The sex was pretty good, but I would say that this was a bit of a slow burn with not that much burning because while they were both 'rebels' in the eyes of the church (Sara a spinster midwife who dressed in 'bright' colours and Adam called 'mad and bad' by the townspeople because of his behaviour), they were believers so they didn't stray that far from their faith.
17/2 - Okay, so my first experience of 'Amish' romance didn't go too badly. The religiosity wasn't too overt (as a well-read atheist I know many bible stories, but don't enjoy having the themes shoved in my face so I was pleased about that), in fact for the first 30% you'd hardly know it was set in an Amish community. It could have been any close-knit community in Midwest 1880s. It wasn't until the bishop forced Sara and Adam to get married or face the shunning of the entire community that hints of Amishness appeared.
There were a lot of punctuation problems, mostly speech marks related - speech marks for internal dialogue, none for conversations, an opening set but no closing and vice versa - there was barely a page that was spared the curse of the incorrectly placed speech mark.
I also noticed a couple of strangely described situations where I questioned Blair's understanding of simple terms
'...until a milk stream pierced her cheek and dripped down her face.' from page 103
Has Sara got dangerously thin skin or does that cow udder have the propulsion of a rocket?
and the time on page 148 when Adam's daughters suggested that nettles be one of the flowers they planted in their new garden the next spring. Being Australian I've never actually seen a nettle, but Wikipedia makes them sound like a plant to be avoided - "bear many stinging hairs whose tips come off when touched, transforming the hair into a needle that can inject several chemicals" (I wouldn't be planting that in any yard with little kids around to get spiked).
The sex was pretty good, but I would say that this was a bit of a slow burn with not that much burning because while they were both 'rebels' in the eyes of the church (Sara a spinster midwife who dressed in 'bright' colours and Adam called 'mad and bad' by the townspeople because of his behaviour), they were believers so they didn't stray that far from their faith.