catmomchantel 's review for:

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

3.0

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I enjoyed this novel. I was slightly confused at the very beginning because I didn't know that there were 2 narrators but once I figured that out (by chapter 2) I really liked the 2 POVs (something that I love in novels, multiple POVs). I like Lucy's POV is more internal, with her thoughts and emotions being the main focus, with some bits of her actions, and Hetty's POV being more external, focusing on her actions (with her thoughts an emotions added in of course). Although I knew it was coming, and it was part of the reason why I picked up this book in the first place, the romance feels very sudden. I feel that, although the 2 lead characters feel pretty fleshed out as characters, the romance arc almost feels shoehorned in, as if the author changed her mind last minute. Despite the POV chapters being synced up, timeline-wise, Lucy's POV shows almost no romantic thoughts/feelings towards Hetty before they confess to each other, and Hetty seems to have about a paragraph or 2 of gay panic before confessing, with her romantic longing for Lucy before this read more as her really wanting to befriend Lucy rather than wanting to bed her. Even as a queer woman myself, Hetty's longing is written so subtly you could easily overlook it until she confesses to Lucy and it's honestly kind of disappointing. I think this book suffers a bit from bad pacing. Things seem to happen slowly and then all at once and it feels a little jarring. Once these events happen, they seem to be written well enough but the latter half of the book feels rushed compared to the first half, and I don't really have much complaining about the pacing in the first half. Instead of the crescendo feeling like a crescendo, it feels like a load of info is being shoved at you haphazardly, in a way that might have worked in a visual medium, like a movie, but leaves you feeling lacking in a book.