The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy PickardMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I feel like this book deserved for me to like it a little bit more than this, but I just didn't.
The beginning of the book - and sporadically throughout - is overwritten. There is a lot of telling, rather than showing, and over-description that I found tedious. Now, I don't expect everyone to write like Hemmingway, certainly, as that's boring too, but there's a lot to be said for trimming some adjectives.
This novel follows a 20-year-old mystery. Who killed the parents of the little girl who became the center of a small town? Was it the man who has been whiling away his days in prison after enough other dastardly deeds that he deserved to be there anyway? Was it one of the members of the stalwart rich-rancher-family that the husband of the couple hailed from? Or someone else in close knit small town? Jody is determined to find out what happened, in particular, to her mother, whose body was never found and that need to know is jump-started by the man convicted of the crime returning to their small town after he is released due to issues with the trial.
The mystery itself is pretty solid and compelling. The characters, while sometimes suffering from stereotyping, are interesting and sympathetic enough. The setting is okay; Kansas flatland has never been a go-to type of setting for me, but alright. The writing is ok. And so, three stars seems just about fitting when I consider that I thought everything about the novel was pretty middle of the road. It's not bad. It's just not spectacular. I wouldn't seek out more books by the author.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment