Shadowbrook by Beverly Swerling

[Jenny]

I'm going to start this book next weekend, if anyone would care to read it with me!

[Misfit]

I read this about three years ago and I think I inhaled it in about two days.

[Jenny]

I just finished Part One and I am totally absorbed in this book. At first it was slow going for me because she dumps a lot of historical background in the beginning, and then a lot of personal background and I was getting annoyed with the switching back and forth between the main characters and Washington and the Scotsman and the priests. But it's all coming together now and really taking off! Just finished the chapter where the Huron raid the plantation - pretty intense!

[Phair]

I will be the dissenting voice on this one. Didn't like it at all. I try to read a few F&I fiction titles every year and had looked forward to this one but I felt beaten down by the detail and the constant rushing about from pillar to post. I also was not partial to the scenes of graphic torture which might have been realistic but are not to my taste. This was too fragmented. As they said about Mozart: Too many notes!

[Jenny]

Sorry, I hadn't posted in this thread since I finished it, but it didn't send me, either. Way too many POVs so I felt like I never really got to know any one character and the heroine was silly. The main characters were separated for years and when they finally got back together the reunions were very lackluster. From a historical standpoint I enjoyed it very much, but the story and characters were a disappointment.

[Phair]

A year after reading Shadowbrook I read The Black Hunter by James Oliver Curwood written back in 1926. It wasn't the greatest book either but many of the events and characters were eerily similar to Shadowbrook (man in love with girl in convent is the one that I recall most). I wondered if Swerling had read the Curwood & been influenced or if both authors had used the same primary source material.

[Jeanne]

Or, Swerling and Curwood might have similar imaginations. If there are many details the same though, I would be suspicious.

I have ordered Shadowbrook and it's okay with me if it has too much history. I'm reading it to get a sense of the time and the historical events. I'm writing a story that takes place in that general area a few years later, so I want to have some background in my head.

[Holly]

Got my copy of Shadowbrook: A Novel of Love, War, and the Birth of America today and will start to read. Thanks to the person who alerted us about the torture scenes. I just might skip over those.

[Jeanne]

My copy arrived on Friday. It looks like a very good read!

[Holly]

Hi,Jeanne!
21 pages in I realized I had read Shadowbrook: A Novel of Love, War, and the Birth of America
before the days I had Goodreads to remind me of what I'd read! But I'd like to read it again if you are so we can discuss. Anyone else out there reading this?

[Jeanne]

Hi Holly,
I thought there was one more reader joining us, but I forget who it might have been. I'll begin reading tonight.

[Holly]

Oh, dear, please don't shoot me, Jeanne. I got 1/3 through and just couldn't stand the brutality. I can still "discuss" because I read it before. Let me know when you're done if you decide to read it.
Thanks for your understanding,
Holly

[Jeanne]

Explicit detailed brutality? Ugh! That is so unnecessary! The novel I'm writing has one man who is bad and way too powerful, but the things he does, has done, and threatens to do will be referred to or deduced from evidence. I find the threat of real violence more scary than the depiction.

[Holly]

Yes, lots of torture scenes. Couldn't keep my eyes on the page.

Ok, this is off topic, but isn't your novel set in 1920s as is Crestmont? When do you expect it to be released or are you in the beginning stages?

[Jeanne]

Centered about 1910, with a couple of years on either side. I have other stories coming that are set in the nineteen-teens and 1920s.

[Jenny]

I'm drawing a complete blank on those torture scenes. What happened that was so bad?

[Misfit]

Jenny wrote: "I'm drawing a complete blank on those torture scenes. What happened that was so bad?"

I don't really recall anything either.

[Holly]

People being deviscerated, burned w/ fire. I stopped after that. I'm very squeamish.