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Hothouse Flower by Lucinda Riley (view source)
Revision as of 15:57, 24 January 2011
, 15:57, 24 January 2011no edit summary
Mary Molloy
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|name=Florence Millitt
|verb= said
|comment=What appealed to me about the book Hothouse Flowers by Lucinda Riley was the cover, however, I was rather put off by the fact it was in Richard and Judy's book club. I have always found that to be detrimental to a book, as their previous novels I have read have tended to be on the scilly cheesy side. But I did like the sound of this book, so I decided to read this.
It did actually start off with a lot of promise and I found in the first chapters I was enjoying it. I think I basically had an idea that the plot would be to do with the woman Julia's parantal roots, it would not take a genius to see that coming, as it is something that has been literally done to death in so many books. However, I found that in the middle of the book it seemed to loose its direction completley and became a little jumbled up. I found the long chapters extremly boring when they centred on the here and now and the relationship between Julia and Kit whom I thought behaved rather like a stalker. In the beginning of the book when it went back to 1939 focusing on Olivia, I did actually get into her character, and then it was gone and centred on the present day. Usually when one cannot put a book down it is a sign of a very good book. Sadly this one was quite an effort to get through until we eventually came to Thialand in 1945. That part of the book was good, and although the ending was predictable, there was still a little of a twist at the end of it. But what spoilt the book completley right at the very end was when it turned out that Julia's husband was alive. It was like something out of Eastenders and ruined the format completley. Also the ending was far to sugary and O.T.T. Yes, a happy ending is nice, but please lets keep it real. The ending was unrealistic to say the least with the fairy godmother coming to the rescue.
I do realise it is very difficult for an auther to weave in and out of the present to the past, and unfortunately I have been rather spoilt by Barbara Vines book A Dark Adapted Eye when she did this so expertly, although I do realise this was a psychological thriller. I think the auther tried to put too much into this book, she should have kept some parts of this more simple and concentraited more on whether this book centred in the past or present, as to me it came across as a present day Mills & Boon without the erotic scenes.
Thanks
Flo
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