Mini - Comments

One more smaller post with just a few words on two of my most recent reads.

I liked both books, one slightly more than the other, but I'd rather leave just a small note on them instead of a bigger post.

Comment: This book is written by a Portuguese author known for his poetic writing style, both beautiful and mesmerizing. I've read something by him before but now I will be more attentive to other titles at the library and in the following months I might try something else.

In this book, he writes a fictionalized and poetic summary of the kind of thoughts the mother of Lucia had while her daughter and her cousins were at the center of attention when the Fatima manifestations happened in 1917. Considering the time when things happened, there isn't a lot of verified information and somehow part of it is already at myth level, part of our country's history. In this book, we have a simple but profound point of view of what it meant for this mother to see her daughter facing such fame, at a time where it was not easy to see it as only something positive. Subject aside, the words are meant to be reflective, to make one feel what it would be like to deal with unwanted people and situations, especially since religion was heavily instilled in people. I liked the book as work of art, although there could be a lot more action. The author wanted to keep his opinion impartial, of course, but I think using real documents to back some things just wasn't enough, even more so when what he included was very, very little.

Grade: 7/10

Comment: This is the second installment in the Wrexford and Sloane series by Andrea Penrose. I've liked the first book quite a lot and it was no wonder I'd follow the series, although this second book felt a little less balanced for me. 

In this new story, there is a new murder to be investigated and somehow Charlotte and the earl join forces again to help the widow and friends of the murdered man. I think the background of the crime was interesting enough but the process of investigation, I confess, wasn't as exciting to read about as I felt towards the first book. At some point it became a little more obvious who likely was the culprit.

The most captivating element here was, for me, the evolution of the protagonist's relationship. We learn a few more tidbits about them, mostly about Charlotte, and that happens because they give hints about how much deeper their feelings were becoming for one another. This is good because part of the appeal of the series was also how long it would take for the earl and Charlotte to fall in love but I think it felt something happened between books which we weren't privy to. I think i would have preferred to see, to actually follow each step in their mutual falling instead of just having them think about it and admitting. Nothing happened until the very end, so I hope the next book will be a bit more balanced in this regard as well.

Grade: 7/10