Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Dec 23, 2008

Sharon rated it:

Those who read my reviews regularly know that I deplore poorly researched historical fiction. Unfortunately, there is such a plethora of poorly researched historical fiction available today that I begin each book with a sense of trepidation.

Fortunately, "Blindspot" is not only well-researched but also entertaining. This semi-epistolary novel finds portrait painter Stewart Jameson newly arrived in Boston on the eve of the American Revolution. His ad for an apprentice is a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2011

Marie rated it:

If I could give this 3.5 stars I would. I found the first 1/2 - 3/4 funny, engaging, and interesting. It totally immerses you into Boston right before the Revolution- language, clothing, art, politics, social classes, everything. The characters were witty and likeable and the romance suspenseful. Then there was a period where I felt irritated by the extreme sexuality. Then when the characters got a grip on their lustful appetites and got back to the mystery part of the story, it somehow felt ove More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I enjoyed reading about this period in American history and was intrigued enough to follow the authors' link to learn more about real-life art and biographies from which the novel is drawn. At the risk of sounding prudish (for who wants to be accused of that! lol) I did not think the book needed the steamy scenes to sell the story.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 26, 2009

Joanne rated it:

I just loved the first third or so of this book. It's a historical novel set in Boston during the 1770s and is told as an epistolary novel, alternating between the male protagonist, a painter, and the female protagonist, the painter's apprentice, who is a fallen-from-society woman pretending to be a boy so that she can work. It's full of witty banter and the authors are American history professors, so it also felt as if the settings and descriptions and dialogue were real. Just wonderful.
More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2009

Stacey rated it:

A fun escape book that kept me turning pages during the first part, which was full of lust and Shakespearian hidden identities with a painting subplot, set in pre-revolutionary New England. The heroine was too modern to be fully believeably from the 17th century, but the light tone of the prose made me not care. Once the hero and heroine got together, the story tried to become a serious examination of slavery and lost its charm.

I was bored and/or annoyed every time the slave Alexan More...

0 comments like

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

A tribute to‚Äīand a send-up of‚Äī18th-century melodramas, Blindspot addresses 21st-century themes while mimicking the bygone era's literary techniques: first-person, epistolary narratives; adventure-studded storylines; and sensational plot twists, including mistaken meanings, hidden identities, and unexpected revelations. At the same time, Kamensky and Lepore skillfully capture the contrasts of early American history, particularly the colonists' struggle to free themselves from British tyranny wh

More...

0 comments like

Sep 20, 2011

Tim rated it:

Henry Fielding has been channeled in this murder mystery and titillating transvestite tale that is rife with political pull and painting practices, and stacked with sniggering slang. The authors have used Fieldingā€™s writing technique he introduced in Tom Jones, wherein the narrator addresses the audience directly while presenting, explaining, or mollifying the sensitive reader to certain material. They have expanded his technique employed in Joseph Andrews (or Shamela for that matter) in which More...

0 comments like

May 26, 2010

Kelsey rated it:

I think the authors were trying to make a nod at novel conventions, so I can overlook the trite mystery and romance aspects of it. As a few other people mentioned, the sex scenes seem out of place and a bit overboard, but what really got me was the way Fanny's reveal as a woman became such a big deal. She immediately starts wearing women's clothes around the house, and acting the lady somehow even though she has more than proven that such roles are based on nothing, and her romance with Jameson More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 13, 2009

Jake rated it:

Blindspot is a masterpiece of teamwork. Kamensky and Lepore, both history professors, have brought alive pre-Revolutionary Boston in the most charming way imaginable: the tale of Stewart Jameson, exiled Scottish portraitist, and Fannie Easton, fallen-socialite-turned-apprentice. As Fannie Eastonā€”or, as she comes to be known, Francis Westonā€”struggles to make sense of her new situation, Jameson finds himself caught up in the politics of colonial Boston. What begins as a comedy of errors, with Jame More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 01, 2009

Jeri rated it:

I do not like history novels. That being said, I completely loved this book. I found it at an independent bookstore, and had never heard anything about it. But the cover looked interesting, so I bought it. Where it sat on my to-read pile. For months. Once I finally, grudgingly, picked it up, I could barely sleep until I finished it! Charming characters who you actually care about tell the story. He is a Scottish painter who flees his debts on the other side of the pond and sets up his ea More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

DELIGHTFUL.

Okay, if you've read a lot of Jane Austen and other 18th/19th century stuff, and you've laughed your way through some romance novels, and you like slave narratives, and you like detective fiction, and you have some fascination with pre-Revolutionary War Boston and enjoy a good historical novel, and you like things to be structured in diary entries and letters, then this book might be for you. Oh, did I mention the whole genderbendy part, with a woman disguised as a boy fa More...

5 comments like

Sep 18, 2009

Suzanne rated it:

For the first half of this book I was completely into it--the plot was interesting, there was erotic tension, it was witty, it is historical and well-researched. But at some point in the novel it started to go bad. The eroticism went overboard and became just silly and cloying. The history...well, I'm sure the facts are correct but somehow the atmosphere isn't really believable and the characters seem anachronistic. The mystery--well there's an omniscient "detective" who is always 20 s More...

2 comments like

Mar 12, 2009

Marie rated it:

I was so excited for this book- a historical fiction written by two well-known and very well respected historians. And I enjoyed the book immensely. It's a really good historical fiction novel without being too sappy, but I'm not sure it lived up to all the hype surrounding it. I expected more- I wanted a bibliography (other historical novels sometimes supply this), I wanted a closer rendition to what actually happened, or at least an opaque connection to historical actors. Instead, this is a no More...

1 comment like

Nov 19, 2010

Barb added it

I had high hopes for this, the jacket makes it sound like the perfect book for me. Sadly I couldn't finish it. The things that got in the way of the enjoyment for me were the stumbling pace of the book, the narration alternates from the male protagonist's first person perspective and the female protagonist's letters to a friend, also thrown into the text are articles from the Boston papers that in my opinion don't do a thing for the story.

The first hundred pages are interesting eno More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 02, 2010

Emily rated it:

Well-researched, but the pacing weakens after the first third. Perhaps because it isn't an eighteenth-century genre, the detective narrative portions drag on too long towards a predictable reveal.

Sections of the novel play well with the era's periodicals, novels, etc. The sections on Fanny's cross-dressing, for instance, draw skillfully on texts such as The Female Husband, Charlotte Charke's autobiography, etc. Overall though, its references to novelist like Fielding, Richardson, L More...

0 comments like

Feb 18, 2009

Laura rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Feb 11, 2010

Scot rated it:

I was charmed by this homage to eighteenth century fiction not in small part because it is written by two history professors from Boston (the main setting of the story) who know the period and its literature well, so their appreciation of how Enlightenment politics, fine art practices, entertainments, and conflicting attitudes on slavery played out in the 1760s is both instructive and entertaining. The hero and heroine, both talented portrait artists, are also witty and capable of the sort of b More...

0 comments like

Jan 21, 2011

Bianka rated it:

I was thrilled by the beginning of this book. The story and tension between the two main characters was very interesting. While I read, I always wondered what would happen to them. Then the murder happened. I thought it would take only a small part of their adventures, but no, it ended up being their whole adventure. I really don't see why murder must be mixed up with painters and their apprentices. Really. The second half of the book could have been chopped off without any problem. And in my op More...

0 comments like

Aug 22, 2010

Sue rated it:

Summer reading, perhaps? The story is a light look at a tease between two people, one a man, the other a woman disguised as a man (you can guess the mischief that results), both cloaked in a historical guise; an Agatha Christie-type light and somewhat entertaining murder mystery (a little too racy for my taste); a friendship between a white man and a highly educated black man in a time when such relationships were highly unlikely and were frowned upon by social custom; and a few other gems to ke More...

0 comments like

Feb 11, 2009

Kate rated it:

I don't know whether it was because the characters were so likable, because I live in Boston, or because I saw the authors speak and they looked like they had such fun writing it that I enjoyed this book so much. It got a tad melodramatic at times, but for the most part I really got into this story and loved it.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Patricia rated it:

When I first started reading this book, I was a little torn-- two women writing a book-- one writes the woman's letters, and the painter writes his tale was a little bit much to take. Was it trite?
Or was it just pleassurable?

Now, 3/4 of the way through, I am smitten with the book-- the characters breath, have intelligence, and a sense of place. I went to school in Boston, and I know the old, cobblestoned streets their travels take them down.

The skill of the Colonial More...

0 comments like

May 24, 2011

Ashley rated it:

This was recommended on a romance blog I love, but I just couldn't get into it. There wasn't one single thing that ruined it, but just a superficiality to the characters and dialog that was mind-numbing. Also, the single-minded focus on slavery and women's rights was tedious. I've just about given up reading historical fiction in the colonial era, even though I love GOOD historical fiction, because I can't seem to find any protagonists who do anything other than continually point out social inju More...

0 comments like

Jun 07, 2009

Erica rated it:

If you've been jonesing for an historical novel that explores wildcat currency, the issue of slavery in early American colonies, gender identity, early American political society, buggery and lots of ribaldry, then this is the book for you!

I was excited about this title because I enjoy Jill Lepore's essays in The New Yorker. Who knew she would come up with a bodice-ripping tale of love and woe.

It's hard to tell who wrote which parts, since this was co-authored, and I'd li More...

0 comments like

Oct 12, 2009

ariel rated it:

My rating is based on the fact that this book is distracting, and yet educational enough that I couldn't feel guilty while reading it. It's basically a trashy pseudo-18th-century novel written by a American historian at Harvard. It reads like the lovechild of Samuel Richardson (Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded, 1741) and Danielle Steele. (Note: double the kitsch factor!). I haven't actually read Danielle Steele, but having read Richardson, I can say this book goes where Richardson fears to tread -- n More...

0 comments like

Jun 26, 2011

Nan rated it:

This is terrific romp through Colonial American history, at least in Boston, just prior to the American Revolution. It's a love story by two authors (both Boston-based history professors); each took the voice of own of the parties, a Scottish painter who flees to America to escape his debts and a disgraced young woman who has fled the poorhouse after being banished from her prosperous father's home. The woman -- a talented aspiring painter -- disguises herself as a boy to win a job as the Scotsm More...

0 comments like

May 24, 2009

Alastair rated it:

I may well have been blind to this book's failings because it is historical fiction written by, & I daresay for, historians. I mean that it was exhilarating for me to read an imaginative reconstruction of 18th century Boston, reconstructed with good evidence but also with two other important ingredients: the power to flesh out historical evidence with 'real life', & also the fantasy to 'redeem' history by writing a narrative which ends with a kind of justice. I would be tempted to assign Blindsp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Haley rated it:

I loved this book.

I have to say, it's not my usual genre. I honestly picked it up because it was a free advance copy, and now I feel like I want to go buy another copy just to encourage these authors to write more. Yes, the way it turned into a romance novel toward the end was a bit much and unnecessary, and I'm still not certain how I feel about the ending, but it was so very worth reading that I don't mind.

It was one of the only books I've ever read where, when finish More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 03, 2010

Patty rated it:

Actually did not finish. Think Goodreads needs to add this category for those of us who refuse to waste time reading a book we are not enjoying.

Normally I like historical fiction but the writing style of this one just didn't appeal to me. In the first 40 pages or so we had a prologue, a chapter from the main characters POV, a chapter from the main female characters POV, a couple of reports on what the Colonies have to say about British taxes and a chapter on what the British are pl More...

0 comments like

Apr 05, 2010

Megan rated it:

Again, a mediorcre book. I was a little suspicious when I learned that the book was written by two women - I don't care much for co-writing. It makes me wonder why one wasn't good enough to do the whole thing. It takes place in Boston just before the Revolutionary War so I thought that might be enough to save the book, but no.

I was debating whether or not to soldier on through the book. Then Alan Brennert's book "Honolulu" arrived at the library and from the first line I k More...

0 comments like

Jan 15, 2012

Kivrin rated it:

If you're a fan of 18th century puns this book is for you. I loved this book. And I want more from the characters. The dialogue was so snappy, and the characters so interesting and complex. There were 2 main plot lines - 1 was essential to the development of the characters and the other was just to give them something to do. Even so, I really loved how this book went together. Many times you'll find an author who can write in a female voice but has trouble with writing in a male voice, or vice v More...

0 comments like