.....but not brilliant. While I can't fault the atmosphere and scene setting in this book something was just lacking in it for me.
As with his previous novel, Tall Oaks, there are so many characters vying for page time, although the majority are well drawn, it's had to keep attention or even care about most.
And because there are so many characters it feels the plot suffers a little for it. However this does evoke small town southern America really well, and the plot and descriptive passages are well written, there's just something missing to make this a really good novel. I'm just not entirely sure what that is....on paper this is a winner, but somehow the sum of it's parts just doesn't make a whole, rounded novel.
As with his previous novel, Tall Oaks, there are so many characters vying for page time, although the majority are well drawn, it's had to keep attention or even care about most.
And because there are so many characters it feels the plot suffers a little for it. However this does evoke small town southern America really well, and the plot and descriptive passages are well written, there's just something missing to make this a really good novel. I'm just not entirely sure what that is....on paper this is a winner, but somehow the sum of it's parts just doesn't make a whole, rounded novel.