C. (Comment, never msg).’s Reviews > Wine of Angels & Candlenight > Status Update

Now we're getting down to a part that is mystery-solving, as well as an exciting magical reason for the grim presence of that most ancient town, Y-Gros (shortened Welsh for "the crossing place"). The duo Phil Rickman finally made into protagonists, Berry Morelli the American and Bethan the Welsh-English teacher, noted there is no crossing place there. I surmise it is a good old transdimensional portal of some kind!

In the last section, we are getting back to the research that is much more interesting. I wish there hadn't been so much detail on scenes that I think were filler; mundane activity the novel could do without. We don't need a million examples that this village is weird and are past obtaining a clear picture of what being Welsh is like. Now for the good stuff; a historic figure or old magic that caused the horror.

I have concluded that there are too many characters and it isn't because I'm not sharp enough to keep track of them. We should relate to a central couple or protagonist. Instead, we have a bunch of people converging on Wales, which we are led to believe is a dangerous country for English to enter. As if the spirits of that place might reject or kill non-Welsh who try to live there. Awfully prejudiced, isn't that?

Extremely bizarre, the point unlear, and nor can I tell who the protagonists might be. It seems Phil Rickman eventually did very well but I think this is his first novel or among them. It was a weak way to start a story: opening unrelated scenes all over the place, with no characters that we hone in on or even like, after this many pages. All I can surmise is that this supposedly off-limits Welsh town factors in.