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A review by daybreak1012
Another Woman's Husband by Gill Paul
2.0
I looked forward to picking up this book, but couldn't ever seem to fully engage. While I have enjoyed many television drama series focused on the British monarchy and aristocracy, I have never found myself excessively taken with it. It's interesting to me and the history is fascinating, but I've never been obsessed with it to the point of following every detail. This book might possibly have hooked me more if I were more consumed by it.
What I liked about Another Woman's Husband:
The peek into an earlier era - I do love to learn more about how things were in other times. Seeing how society operated and what the customs were fascinates me. The character of people doesn't ever seem to change that much, but what is deemed acceptable by societal standards has gone through many evolutions over time.
What I didn't care for:
The characters - I either didn't care about them or straight up didn't like them. Nearly every last one of them. (I did really like Eleanor and Ralph Hargreaves.) Some were too prone to being doormats, while others had zero moral compass at all.
A serial lack of respect for marriage - It touched nearly every character to some extent. And worse, it almost seemed a glorification of it.
The writing style just didn't seem to click for me - I can't put my finger on what exactly didn't work for me. I don't mind dual timelines, typically, but this one just read like to two separate book manuscripts fell on the floor together and found themselves printed as one. While there was an occasional fragment of detail that would appear in both storylines and there was some resolution uniting them toward the end, mostly they just told two different series of events.
This was my first venture into a book by Ms Paul, and while many seem to love her works, I don't feel inclined to delve into a second book. Perhaps her style just isn't meant for me, though I appear to be somewhat of a minority here.
What I liked about Another Woman's Husband:
The peek into an earlier era - I do love to learn more about how things were in other times. Seeing how society operated and what the customs were fascinates me. The character of people doesn't ever seem to change that much, but what is deemed acceptable by societal standards has gone through many evolutions over time.
What I didn't care for:
The characters - I either didn't care about them or straight up didn't like them. Nearly every last one of them. (I did really like Eleanor and Ralph Hargreaves.) Some were too prone to being doormats, while others had zero moral compass at all.
A serial lack of respect for marriage - It touched nearly every character to some extent. And worse, it almost seemed a glorification of it.
The writing style just didn't seem to click for me - I can't put my finger on what exactly didn't work for me. I don't mind dual timelines, typically, but this one just read like to two separate book manuscripts fell on the floor together and found themselves printed as one. While there was an occasional fragment of detail that would appear in both storylines and there was some resolution uniting them toward the end, mostly they just told two different series of events.
This was my first venture into a book by Ms Paul, and while many seem to love her works, I don't feel inclined to delve into a second book. Perhaps her style just isn't meant for me, though I appear to be somewhat of a minority here.