A review by mazza57
Dangerous Women by Hope Adams

2.0

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It started off well, the premise of female convicts being transported to Van Diemens Land. The background includes references to prison reform and to Elizabeth Fry. I found, however, the majority of this book was just heavy going. Like the ship the book seemed to be taking a long time to get absolutely nowhere. I am not sure that creating two timelines that were so close to each other really did anything to help this I felt a linear approach which concentrated more on the creation of tension that must have been evident in a situation like this. Instead each repetition of Now was indeed that, a repetition of the last Now, the investigation seemed banal and lack lustre. I often wonder in these cases whether author's are writing to a pre conceived idea of optimal book length. I believe this would have been better as a more concise 200-250 page book.