Customer Reviews

Family Reunion (Homespun)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Family reunion is a lovely, gentle and touching story with a thoroughly likeable H/H. The hero, Chad, is particularly attractive and it is rewarding to watch him come to terms with his huge disability. How he does this, supported by a particularly feisty heroine, Jennifer, is well worth the read. The other characters are strong and well drawn.

The only quibble I have is that the actions the lead characters take, the situations they deal with and, most especially, their sexual behaviour is rather out of synch for the timeframe (I believe it is meant to be the 1890s). Although this is somewhat of a distraction, if you can get past this, then the storyline is strong, the prose pretty good and you will enjoy the book.

A further problem is, again, one of synch. The hero faces a pretty big challenge for he is severely disabled (paralysed and in a wheelchair). In those times, a man who had an accident and injury such as his would been unlikely to survive or, at least, for very many years. If you compare his experiences to those of Mac McCandless in A Man Like Mac, (eg bladder problems which in the 1890s would have been, probabably, fatal) you will see what I mean. The heroine handles him very well but, again, she is out of context of her times I think and the author does use some rather "politically correct" terminology in describing the situation. However, they are a truly likeable pair and you can't help but be pleased for their personal outcome.

"Jill Metcalf has written a strong and beautiful Americana romance populated with characters the audience will love and wish to emulate. The author's handling of the male protagonist's handicap is nothing short of incredible and she should be congratulated for tackling a sensitive issue in such a tender and finely tuned romance" ... Affaire de Coeur

cannot find enough of these books that are lovely to read i hope jill keeps on writing but i still have not found any new ones. from michelle.

I was barely able to make it through this book, not sure why I kept trying. I suppose I thought it might get better, but it didn't.

There was a lot of head-hopping, switching point-of-view frequently and without warning.

The plot was thin and any conflict that came up was resolved within a paragraph or two, there was no sense of over-arching story. The book had no structure, the story meandering all over the place without coming to a real point.

The dialogue was very stiff and not believable, a trap that historic fiction can easily fall into.

The hero was difficult to take seriously, since he peppered his speech with affectionate terms in just about every single sentence he spoke. He also was used as the vehicle to describe the heroine, which meant that he was observing how in fashion her dress was and the hem line and style of ribbons, which made him seem like he couldn't possibly be a straight male.

I really hate to be critical, particularly of a fellow author. I really wanted to like this book. On the other hand, I feel the need to warn readers of the problems that I had with it.