Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72
Now I'm reading an indie effort which promises to be a bit different - a LBGT historical drama. It's The Pretty Gentleman by Max Fincher and I'll be reviewing it for my site. It's about a wide-eyed young painter who falls for his patron and is eventually betrayed. So - here I go.
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OK - I really enjoyed this one (4 - 4.5 stars). It's pacing is a bit bizarre and I really thought it was more of a coming-of-age historical drama, but then it turned into this murder mystery that climaxed in the last quarter of the book. Consequently, I can see why some would claim pacing problems.
However, I had no problems with it, and the slower paced first half I found to be quite fascinating; rich in detail about the lives of artists at the time, with the appearance of famous personages such as Henry Fuseli and William Mulready, some passages of searing beauty on the nature of the male form from the point of view of the artist, and a coming-of-age tale that falls apart after the youthful aspiring painter falls in love with his patron.
Even without the murder mystery aspect, I would have enjoyed this novel. However, if I was reading it mainly because of the murder mystery I might have had trouble with the first half of the book.
There was the occasional issue with a typo/missed word, but these were infrequent and there was one passage that changed to present tense in a way I felt could not be justified. Additionally there was one issue with a fact repeated in a scene in an illogical way. On the whole, however, the quality was fairly consistent and as stated before, some of the passages were quite beautiful. The author has a flair for the descriptive.
I'm still waiting for my library copy of Buddenbrooks to become available, so in the meantime, I'm going to try out another indie.
This time, it is
The Takers, the first in a trilogy about Oz (with a dark/horror slant) from the author R W Ridley. This book won an IPPY award in 2006 so I'm hoping this is a fair indication of the quality I can expect.