yetanothersusan 's review for:

Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter by Lizzie Pook

2.25

adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

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This is closer to 2.5 stars for me. I really struggled with how unrealistic the story was, the over the top excessive descriptions, and how often we needed to read about insects. There are bugs in Australia! I get it! And at some points the detailed descriptions got out of hand. I like an atmospheric novel that sets the stage for the story and at times I marveled with the beautiful language, but this almost felt like the author had written a book that was a little too long to be considered a short story but not long enough to be a full novel so was told to go back and add stuff. The result was a slowly moving book that might have worked if it weren't about a woman trying to solve a mystery and find her missing father. There are parts that I still question and the ending didn't seem to follow the flow of the rest of the book. Does it need editing or is this the first novel and we can expect improvement in future offerings? 

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.