The Novelist’s Rake by Ava Douglan

Not Enough Conflict and Tension

I so enjoyed the first book that I read by this team of authors who goes by the name of Ava Douglan, The Soldier’s Poem. So when I found this book at my favorite book review site, I snapped it up immediately. I found the other book to be such a different and compelling spin on time-travel romance; I truly enjoyed the unique characters. Unfortunately, this book didn’t give me the compelling read that I was hoping for. It disappointed me on a couple of different fronts. For one thing, I didn’t think it accurately reflected the way that publishing works on several levels that I won’t detail here. Since this is so integral to the story and how Catherine reacts, I think it is actually important to get right. Another thing that I didn’t like was that it felt like there was no true tension or conflict. It felt like we were just shown scene after scene of slice of life moments in the heroine’s studio apartment or out and about in New York. I felt like I kept waiting for something to happen. Things got more interesting as it got to the end, but by then, it felt a little too late. So while I would definitely recommend the previous book that I talked about, I don’t feel like I can really recommend this one.