MM Good Book Reviews - Thommie's Books

2 Hearts
Review written for MM Good Book Reviews
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I am highly disappointed from this book. It started so well and the descriptions were so nice to get you right at the heart of the start of 20th century industrial revolution. William’s excitement was nearly catching and I couldn’t wait for the real story and the romance to start, but it failed me quickly and unceremoniously.

First of all there was the incredible amount of typographic and grammar errors that made the entire experience a horrible nightmare. Honestly I don’t think I’ve read a published book in such a bad state. It felt as if the book was a first draft and hasn’t even gone through a first-hand proofreading. All the enticing descriptions and the beautiful operas that we got introduced in here were lost; Lost in a sea of eye numbing errors.

Furthermore the story itself went way out of hand. The story follows William, a man of no social rank who by shear fortune and of course intellect managed to land a scholarship and have a good education. Yet he is still a nobody at the high circles of 1910 New York. An accident brings him face to face with the most enticing man he’s met and he experiences a deep truth inside him, that he’s attracted to men. No, not just any man, but Elliot Reed of the Reed family in New York. A series of event leads to the two men having a relationship, a first one for William, in which he falls head first and with utter lack of inhibitions.

But things get somehow intense when a young lady Elliot had been courting finds their “friendship” quite odd and resolves to investigate it, in addition to Elliot’s brother in law who is hell bound to make Elliot miserable and destroy anything that makes him happy.

And this is exactly where the story went off hands. There is this huge build up that lead you to believe that things are about to happen from these quarters. You expect intrigues, drama, outing, and angst… You get nothing. Absolutely nothing!

A business deal forces Elliot to travel to Europe and he proposes William to go with him as his nephew’s tutor by day, his lover by night. I expected some dramatic events to follow this but, heh, I really should stop doing that. The three of them went to Europe and beside the enormous education on Strauss’ opera’s and classical music we received, the plot itself was from lukewarm to downright boring.

William felt much more at home in the Old World society. He became the object of interest for a Countess’s niece and Elliot felt unneeded. That cause some drama for the pair that resolved itself after the love lesson they got from hearing Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier.

So I’m left wonder why on Earth did the author build up all that backstage drama with Potter and Missy back in New York and in the end what was the point of this book, beside showing us how much of a classic fan the author is? I know there is a bitterness leaking through my words, but after two days reading a book that should have taken only few hours if it was properly polished, and after all that headache those errors brought to me I’m not feeling too generous.

End result I did not like the book at all, poorly executed and pointless in my opinion. The rating it got was solely for the wonderful description of Dresden and the Der Rosenkavalier opera.

Thommie