Author's note: This review is my work and has appeared in Online Book Club as well. The link for the OBC review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=392980&p=2394243#p2394243
Verdict: Approach with caution. (Rating 3/5). I have
given this rating due to the subject matter and writing style explained below.
Overview: This is the first book I’ve read by London
Skye. It’s a romance novel.
I’m not new to romance novels and can appreciate the
formulaic writing, cheap sex scenes, and all the glorious time-pass they
entail. This novel turned out to be a bit different than I expected, both good
and bad, as I’ll outline later.
The novel brings us through the journey of a female slave,
Lily. She is ripped from her mother’s arms as a child, finds a childhood friend
who she thinks will betray her again, is given a chance to foster musical
talent, and finally becomes successful.
As I mentioned, romance novels are generally written only
for entertainment. I found myself hard-pressed in this novel to keep the
reading at a surface level. I’ll avoid political commentary in this review, but
as a reader, it will be difficult to avoid if the reader is aware and
introspective.
I Enjoyed: The author has made a strong attempt at a
non-cliched, talented, female main character. She has also tried to tell a
different slavery story and highlight that perhaps there were times when white
people supported people of color and tried to change the system. There is a
clear plot line that isn’t just sex. Many of the cliched, ridiculous romance
novel misogynies were also pleasantly absent. I enjoy stories when the timeline
jumps around and this novel does that well.
Suggestions for Improvement: Spelling out accents in
dialogue is extremely distracting. I got stuck trying to re-create accents and
wondering if I was in the South, North East, or Southern Midwest where I grew
up. The phonetic spellings only occasionally appeared for certain characters,
increasing my confusion. Informing the audience that the scene takes place in
the South, or that a character is from London is sufficient; the reader can
imagine the accents as he or she will. I also found there to be too much
repetition of ideas and scenes. While the author did make a successful attempt
to weave a story with intersecting timelines, I wished I could skip sections
because the point they were making was already long-established. I stretched to
the outside of my patience for glossing over facts and realities. While I
understand that romance novels are meant to be fantasy, this novel tried to
take a horrific historical occurrence and gloss over it. I could not enjoy it
because I could not get around the re-engineered political and social
implications. The author also seemed to tire of the project at the end and told
the audience the ending, rather than finish weaving the story. While I can
understand this as a writer, it wasn’t ideal.
Summary: This was a hard read for me. While it was
well written and the author thought through and put a lot of effort into the
work, I’m not certain it’s possible to change the rhetoric on some topics;
slavery is one of those topics for me. A clear attempt was made to avoid ethnic
and gender-related “savior” cliches, but they ended up coming out in the end
anyhow. The imposition of current socially aware thinking (such as asking for
permission to have sex with someone in that era, not to mention someone whom
you’ve been conditioned to not think of as a human being) struck me as
improbable and rang false. The point I’m getting at here is that it’s too much
for a romance novel. Expecting a social examination from a historical romance
novel doesn’t fit the genre. Read it if you’re curious and able to turn your
analytical thinking off.
