So if you have seen the headlines about the Charleston Calhoun statue coming down, this book lays out, in great depth, the reason why that statue should have come down.
More importantly, the book traces how one city chose to remember history and the impact that it had.
Highly important read.
Wow ! Just Wow! Where to start ? I was on pins and needles the entire time reading this story. Omg ! was this story really good it kept me on edge the entire time I was reading it.The subject matter was dark and intense and the plot engaging and suspenseful and full of twists and turns and emotional pain and was this story and emotional one.I don't know what to say other than that this story drew you right in from the very beginning and kept you there to the very bitter end.This story definitely one that touched on the readers emotions as you felt the pain of these two main characters and their struggles.
Cosima was a character who was beautiful and loving and strong and determined and lost and trying to find her a path in a new life that she created for herself but, one thing she has never been able to conquer is her feelings for her master/husband Alexander and it is only something he can provide for her and her happiness depends on it.
Alexander was one dark and dangerous man but, he was also smart and cunning and Cosmia is the only person who has ever made him feel anything close to being human and he will do everything and anything to protect her and own her body and soul to the bitter end. If I am being honest this man scared that crap out of me.
Overall we loved the story from being to end.The story had amazing characters and there was never a dull moment.The story was very dark and intense and not one for the faint of heart and one for only the open minded because it is very dark and the bdsm to the extreme that is full of pleasure and pain and only one a master and slave will ever understand the depths of emotions and pleasures this kind of relationship brings but, it is one that both parties need to embrace the dark in order to be happy. Cosmia life will be always be controlled by Alexander and his dominate nature and as she is carving out a new life for herself through sheer work determination she needs to make a choice to place herself fully in the hands of the dark and dangerous lord because once she does she will be forever owned and nothing but death with ever separate them again.....
One Enthralling read and Miss Darling is a master storyteller for sure and we have thoroughly enjoyed everything we and read from her so far and this story yet, again an was and amazing read for us !
When faced with an historic horror, most of us immediately think "How could they?" It is inconceivable that good people would stand by and do nothing in the face of genocide or chattel slavery. Some things seem so obviously wrong. But of course people are always doing horrible things while other people try to stop them, or stand by, frozen into inaction by all the other people who are also not doing anything, or don't even notice the wrongness so deeply embedded in their society.
Thus, the enslavement of millions of people. There's really nothing about it that isn't horrific: kidnapping, owning people, rape as a means of production. Kowal tackles this one head on, sending the Vincents out to deal with his family's sugar cane plantation in Antigua. She does an excellent job of looking at if from different angles to solve their problems. And although it's fantasy, there's no pretending like a little magic can fix all this.
Altogether a really interesting way to take Jane Austen and run with it. This particular series has the historical period down, and manages a gentle touch when addressing all the ugliness Austen eschewed. And a big plus, there is some humor and Jane does get some witty comments in, but it isn't just snappy comebacks.
Library copy
This historical fiction reads more like a book written in the 19th Century than one written in our time, which says something for the quality of the Dennis’s creativeness. One must qualify that by pointing out that there is a great deal of modern rather than 19th Century word usage and sentence structure, but for the modern reader that simply sharpens understanding, rather than detracting from the historic placement. Time shifting word patterns have often give even the greatest literature from past centuries a turgid heaviness. So I think the author was right to not too deeply play his use of 19th century ‘building materials’.
As one is absorbed in the series of period specific vignettes, which make up the book, the descriptive detail effortlessly levers imagination back through time. I would find it hard to believe that Dennis hasn’t read a great many of the classic fictions from the period, allowing his writing to absorb something of those famous authors tones. The modern reader needs to be warned that this book also has a slow rhythm, is very long descriptive detail and has a primary plot that is almost an irrelevance. What Davis does do with a certain brilliance is draw us to the ‘atmospheres’, the social drama, the real histories, of the 18th and 19th centuries.
My strongest criticism is firstly that the book is overlong, being at least two good-sized reads in one, and that, secondly, I see no value in flicking backwards and forwards in time. The later confused me, causing a struggle to put together the jigsaw of characters and events. I am, I’m sure, hampered by being a particularly slow reader, so necessitating many periods of reading interwoven with the demands of my real world. Particularly with my memory being far short of excellent, I was too often left half drowned. The book is far too long for all but a few to read at one or even two concentrated sittings. I would love to see this book re-engineered into a simple linear chronology.
Overall, it would be most ingenuous of me not to give this book five of those ridiculous stars. However, I feel this reads more like a work in progress than a finished article. This is the first part of a series, but that doesn’t mean that this volume is correctly ended in adagio rather than climatic allegro. The read finishes with an intellectual plot resolution of sorts, but with none of the fortissimo that some earlier episodes in the book achieved. In short, a wonderful read that is somewhat spoiled by a lack of input from a good content editor.
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