A review by turrean
The Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels
2.0
I remember liking this book when I was much, much younger, and far more earnestly romantic!
Unrelieved by even the faintest glimmer of humor, this was a bit of a slog. Leaden dialogue. Sadly lacking in women characters, too. Besides the beautiful heroine, there's a strange old white witch, and a few walk-ons, like a vapid maid and a "like, fer sure" hippy girl. Also weirdly without setting; so strange, considering how much fun Michaels / Peters has with her novels (set firmly in Maryland! or Egypt!) It's as if some editor told her to remove all references to geography. I wasn't even really sure at first what country it was in! The affectionately drawn portrait of small town inhabitants in [b: Naked Once More|170866|Naked Once More (Jacqueline Kirby, #4)|Elizabeth Peters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388532986s/170866.jpg|165019] show what the author would later be capable of. I fled this novel's clutches to one of the author's much better written (and much later) novels.
Unrelieved by even the faintest glimmer of humor, this was a bit of a slog. Leaden dialogue. Sadly lacking in women characters, too. Besides the beautiful heroine, there's a strange old white witch, and a few walk-ons, like a vapid maid and a "like, fer sure" hippy girl. Also weirdly without setting; so strange, considering how much fun Michaels / Peters has with her novels (set firmly in Maryland! or Egypt!) It's as if some editor told her to remove all references to geography. I wasn't even really sure at first what country it was in! The affectionately drawn portrait of small town inhabitants in [b: Naked Once More|170866|Naked Once More (Jacqueline Kirby, #4)|Elizabeth Peters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388532986s/170866.jpg|165019] show what the author would later be capable of. I fled this novel's clutches to one of the author's much better written (and much later) novels.