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Julie (Mom2lnb)'s review

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/802153.The_Hidden_Heart?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Hidden Heart" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1178503740m/802153.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/802153.The_Hidden_Heart?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Hidden Heart</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23890.Laura_Kinsale">Laura Kinsale</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15373022?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>I found myself having a love/hate relationship with this book. I really wanted to like the story and the characters, but there were many things I disliked about both. I will admit that Laura Kinsale is a talented author who writes with intelligence, but I think perhaps her writing style is a bit too intense for my taste. I love tortured heroes, but in my opinion, Gryf's torment was overdone to the point of being depressing. I prefer to watch troubled souls change and grow throughout the course of the story to overcome their adversity, but Gryf was not like this at all. Instead he became more and more miserable as the story progressed, until magically everything suddenly turned into wine and roses in the last few pages. There was a part of me that truly sympathized with him, but another part that was incredibly annoyed with him. I did mostly like Tess. At least she had some spunk, pursued Gryf when he didn't want to acknowledge his feelings, and fought to save him from his worst enemy, himself. 
<br/>
<br/>I thought that the story had some pacing issues. Sometimes it was so interesting I didn't want to put it down, yet other times I found it to be pretty dull. I became exhausted by the on-again/off-again relationship of the hero and heroine. They would get together at the beginning of a chapter and be separated again by the end. I found this to be very frustrating, and it continued throughout the entire book. In spite of all the annoyances though, I seemed compelled to keep reading, but I have a feeling it was more because I was anxiously awaiting anything good that might happen to these two characters than anything else. This is definitely a character-driven story that doesn't have a great deal of plot, yet spans a rather epic 2-3 years from beginning to end. Readers who like dark, intense romances may enjoy this, but for me it was a humorless tale that was no walk in the park.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/883725?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Julie (Mom2lnb)'s review
rating:
bookshelves: historical-romance, read-2008

I found myself having a love/hate relationship with this book. I really wanted to like the story and the characters, but there were many things I disliked about both. I will admit that Laura Kinsale is a talented author who writes with intelligence, but I think perhaps her writing style is a bit too intense for my taste. I love tortured heroes, but in my opinion, Gryf's torment was overdone to the point of being depressing. I prefer to watch troubled souls change and grow throughout the course of the story to overcome their adversity, but Gryf was not like this at all. Instead he became more and more miserable as the story progressed, until magically everything suddenly turned into wine and roses in the last few pages. There was a part of me that truly sympathized with him, but another part that was incredibly annoyed with him. I did mostly like Tess. At least she had some spunk, pursued Gryf when he didn't want to acknowledge his feelings, and fought to save him from his worst enemy, ...more

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message 1: by Daisiemae

05/08/2008 12:57PM

Mom,
Laura Kinsale is like that for me too! Either it is a big hit, or miss with me. Sometimes the pacing is very SLOW, but in the end worth the while, others times unfortunately I feel like i just wasted my time...I think I will pass on this one...great review!