Rod Raglin: The Bird Whisperer
Dear Author,
Thank you for an ARC of the next Mattie Saunders book. I've been looking forward to meeting Mattie again. And since you mentioned you wanted to include a stereotype-free First Nations character, I was curious there, too.
In the beginning, however, both Mattie and Bodine behave like idiots. Wasn't Bodine supposed to be a people person? But there he is spending all day with a different woman, never making it up to his girlfriend and wondering why she's mad at him. And Mattie has nothing else to do than whine and reflect. Of course she would be sad and of course she would be thinking, but I don't want to read it on so many pages. The first three chapters consist of way too much introspection and no tension yet to pull me in and pull me through.
In chapter four, Angie gets sick and there's some tension: Will she live? After the answer, the tension is gone. I'm mad at Bodine and Mattie spends chapter five thinking again. In chapter six we meet the First Nations character: Simon. He's around Mattie's age and takes her to a research site. No time yet to get to know him or find out anything about Canadian First Nations people. Still a slow read. It stays slow when the creepy professor shows up: We already know what to expect. I wonder why Mattie doesn't lock her room from the inside.
More slow chapters. We meet Simon again, this time with his family, but other than his mother being a community nurse and his grandmother talking like a TV astrologist, they look like any other family. To make up for it, you give us an info dump during a car ride.
And then the book gets good.
Action. Tension. Questions. Insights into Mattie's and her mother's backstory. Insights into the MeToo-movement. Congratulations on daring to write that, Mr. Raglin. More congratulations on your research about how oiled birds are rescued. It reads like you've helped do it. Have you?
Is Simon a stereotype-free First Nations character? Others will have to decide that. He does look different from Winnetou, especially his clothes.
Mattie goes through some character growth. In the last chapters I like her again. And you introduce Simon and Ann-Louise as interesting new characters. They make me hope the Mattie Saunders Series continues.
Ironically, just when the book gets good, the editing gets sloppy. In the beginning I was going to congratulate you, Mr. Raglin: The first chapters contain hardly any mistakes at all. But in the second half you're back to the usual: apostrophes at random, effect/affect, capital letters at the end of words and more. Full stops instead of question marks and vice versa. I hope you have the time for one more round of editing before The Bird Whisperer gets released.
Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann de Fran
The Bird Whisperer is book 3 in the Mattie Saunders Series by Rod Raglin.
To be published in June, 2019.
Visit the author on www.rodraglin.com.
