Does anyone read REAL Victorian literature, anymore? Like Jane Austen, the Brontes, Wilkie Collins, Dickens, George Eliot, and the like? From the praise heaped upon this poorly written novel on Amazon, apparently not, for, if readers had, they would have seen right through Kris Waldherr's poorly written novel.
Now, to her credit, it is clear to me she has read all of the aforementioned authors, and good for her. Like me, she knows the true pleasures of Victorian literature.
She also knows all the generic formulae. What she does not understand is how to put it all together.
When I saw that Kate Quinn, author of a book that disappointed me earlier, called "The Alice Network," compared this book to "Wuthering Heights," I knew she was over reaching.
It hardly compares. There is so much excess--too many lost loves, generations, characters coming and going that she does not have the skill to allow readers to keep track of, a ho hum conclusion, and women upon women masquerading as other women, until one's head is spinning.
If she had scraped half the excess off, she might have had a passable novel. But with her spectacular overload, she manages to reduce Victoriana to triteness, a thing I can not allow.
It is only 300 pages, but seemed twice as long. A sign of a bad novel.
I wish Miss Waldherr luck in her writing. But on the basis of this overdone pablum, I am going to steer clear of her!
Stick to the REAL thing, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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