5 stars This may well be my favorite book yet from Charlie Lane, which is odd because I found it a bit slow-moving and disorienting when it began. By the end, the word that kept coming to mind was lush. The writing seemed almost experimental, as if the author were testing out a more visceral way of describing characters/scenes/feelings, but the more I read, the more I realized just how masterful it was. If this were my first book from Charlie Lane, and if I weren’t already hooked on her writing, this one would do it for me. I have only a few suggestions for improvement, although sadly, I’m not really sure how I would fix them. At the beginning of the story, Cass (the rogue) is described in such a way that I envisioned him as a young man uncertain of himself and gangly in his movements. I understand the reason: Ada needed to see him that way and the reader saw him as she did. Unfortunately, while she came to see him as a man, there was still a bit of the little boy in him that I couldn’t erase from my imagination and it was reflected in some of his physical movements and facial expressions. (As an aside, I found it fascinating to realize that Ada had the mind of a codebreaker.) My second suggestion? I remember encountering this in one of her other books, The Secret Seduction, and it was my complaint about that one too. I realize these are fictional stories, but when I start reading, I immerse myself in the lives of the characters. When they do things in places where they shouldn’t, it makes me nervous. Can we please not have characters kissing or feeling one another up in public? This time, “In the middle of Berkeley Square. Where anyone could see.” (Coincidentally, The Secret Seduction introduced me to Lord Trevor, hero of the book and son of Lady Hemsworth, author of “Lady’s Guide to Moral Rectitude,” a book that Cass and Ada purchase in a bookstore.) My third suggestion is this. This book could have benefited from more thorough editing. I found some of the missing words and word repetitions distracting. Obviously, none of my complaints warrant the removal of stars from my rating. This is not an action-packed story. It’s very introspective and thought-provoking, and although there are, naturally, activities involved, much of the story is conveyed through the feelings of the characters. And the hero’s journey is not limited to only one character, even though the reader is led to believe that at the beginning. Cass needs to learn to forgive himself and Ada needs to learn to value herself. As Ada tries to help Cass to reform, which is what he believes he needs, he realizes that she needs someone to accept her without judgment and teach her to value herself. Who better to offer no judgment than someone who can’t forgive himself? Family ties are also a strong theme running through the plot, and the love shown by family members for one another is truly remarkable. But let me get back to the word lush and try to explain my use of it. I think it was the way Ms. Lane used imagery and metaphors to describe feelings. For example, one of Cass’ reactions to emotional discomfort is to laugh. “He laughed, but a dark edge pulsed just under his skin, like he wore a suit of knives inside his body and any wrong move would flail him from the inside out.” Cass is very denigrating about himself. He is drawn to Ada, while also trying to protect her from himself. When he looks at her, he sees “spring-green eyes containing oceans of emotions he lacked the intelligence to understand… He swallowed the desire to understand them.” At one point, Ada has a fight with her sister, Nora, who does not want her to have anything to do with Cass. Nora has just finished cleaning her pistol and follows Ada up to her room where they have words and Nora laughs derisively at something Ada says, “the tin sound echoing like bullets off the close walls, shattering the looking glass, the windows.” After Nora slammed the door shut behind her, Ada’s “chest ached, the fight with Nora like an unremoved knife in her heart.” There is one particular scene, in chapter 13 (also the scene of the PDA mentioned earlier) that particularly impressed me with its descriptions and the author’s ability to carry the metaphor over multiple pages without it growing old, but rather, transforming it. In fact, I’m going to elaborate for a few paragraphs because I was so enamored with it. Ada can be very demonstrative, coming from a large family with many younger siblings. She frequently touches him without considering the physical reaction he might have. At one point, “He shrugged away from her touch and scooted his ass across the wet grass, planting distance between them he hoped to grow into an impenetrable forest.” Then, he proceeds to watch Ada eating an ice from Gunter’s and can’t take his eyes off of her as her “dimple appeared and disappeared, a flickering star guiding a lost man home.” And he feels something soft and mossy forming within himself. “He’d taken the forest metaphor too far, but he felt a green boy…new to the emotions rocking him…” As Ada begins to sense a closeness growing between them she informs him she has a suitor, and he feels like a “tree must have fallen directly onto his head. He felt dazed, defeated. Might as well be dead.” When she continues blithely along, telling him they’re not in love and that there’s no need for love in her marriage, his response is immediate. “...that killed him more than the falling tree had. A hundred bees stung him in a hundred different places. Those thorns from his caution-grown forest snagged him, tightened, pierced. Impossible pain. Suffocation.” He begins to lose control and before long, he’s kissing her. “He had tried to grow a forest, dark and deep and tangled, but one touch, one breath, and the world became a garden instead—fragrant, open, softening the sky with a rainbow’s splash of gentle color. He sank into it more deeply…” She pushed him away. “And the garden flickered out of existence. The moss inside browned, crisped, crumbled. His arms dropped to his side, dead logs with little purpose but to be burned.” But it’s only temporary and she soon resumes what he started. “He could not name or describe the relief crashing through him, crunching his forest trees like twigs, crumbling to dust all his defenses.” A couple of chapters later, when Ada asks him what color he would most like in his room… “‘Green,’ he said, but he really meant you.” (Annnd, scene.) Ada has a bit of a strained relationship with her father so she’s surprised when he tells her he’s happy she broke things off with her suitor. He tells her, “He’s too closed-in for you, Ada. You need wide skies and possibilities. And he prefers ceilings and routine.” I love this! He continues to give her a bit of advice about hearts and I found his counsel the kind of thing I’d like to offer my own child. “It doesn’t break as easily as you think. It’s a flexible thing. And as you learn to love a million new places, you’ll find you can leave your heart everywhere all at once and keep it in your chest, too.” In case I was unclear, I absolutely loved this book. It feels different, and for that reason, it may not be accessible to as many people, but for those who enjoy something a bit unusual, you won’t want to miss this one. May 4, 2022
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Elizabeth J ConnorWriter. Editor. Proofreader. Archives
September 2022
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