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El Duque De Las Sombras (2011)

by Meredith Duran(Favorite Author)

4.07 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

8408099817 (ISBN13: 9788408099819)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Grupo Planeta/Esencia

review 1: This is one of those books where, after you read it, you think to yourself: "I don't know if I can be friends with someone who doesn't love this book." To say I loved this book would be a gross understatement. I don't know if it's because I've been in a deep, persistent reading funk recently, where every book I pick up strikes me as trite and poorly formed, second rate garbage, but this book felt like FINALLY drinking a cool glass of water after being forced to swallow brackish sludge for weeks. Thank you, Meredith Duran. Thank you for being an excellent writer.Thank you for eliciting emotions in your reader.Thank you for doing research before writing a book.Thank you for crafting two magnificent main characters.Thank you for writing a meaningful and romantic story. Just..... more. thank you.
review 2: What to say? I had high hopes for this book. I am seriously puzzled at the 5 star reviews for this book. Perhaps my standards are too high for romantic historical fiction. I know reviews are all subjective but in terms of literary merit, this just does not meet the mark for me. The ingredients are all there for a good story but the author just does not pull it off. I really like the context of the revolution in India against the British. The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large-scale rebellion in northern and central India against the British East India Company's rule. Interesting issues were lightly touched upon in the story. Like- the predominance of members from the upper castes in the army, attempts of the government to convert them to Christianity, low salaries and the racial discrimination, indifference of the British towards leading native Indian rulers etc. The hero and heroine are both somewhat rebels and rejected by their peers. The translation of the atrocities through Emma's artwork was a clever angle. The hero being of mixed British and Indian heritage also brings a fascinating perspective in the context of the story as he is torn in allegiance.However, the author does not do a great job of translating the history into a fictional account. The jumps/gaps in time were confusing. Character development? meh. And as another reviewer mentioned many passages were just simply bizarre. I also had to reread sentences to make sense of them. Strange structure. And dialogue would jump around within a brief passage such that I was often pressed to figure out who was speaking. There were some points where I had no idea what the author was talking about. So it was grammatically and structurally inelegant. As for the romance, so unromantic. Crude anatomical detail and language may be commonplace for romance novels but I was not impressed. Truly breath catching romance is not so blunt. Thankfully these episodes were infrequent. Same with the horrific violence. It was described so mechanically. It takes some artistry to handle these two topics well - and that was lacking.There were many missed opportunities here for great story telling. Julian's childhood in India and struggles growing up as a mixed heritage child in both India and England are described in a couple paragraphs. And we are told we should weep for him. Really? I can only imagine. No detail. To understand his character this should have been expanded upon. The same with Emma's background. She survives the sinking of her ship during her passage to India, loses her family and is rescued by a group of sailors on a freighter. This experience forms who she is and how she sees the world but we know very little of it but we are supposed to feel her trauma. Also, we are told how heartwrenchingly Julian tried to find Emma after they were separated during the revolt. Months and months were spent in their agonizing search for each other. There were many close misses. Well, we are told this but experience none of it!The many glimpses of magic in this just fail to materialize. And there is a typo in the middle of one of the most intense romance scenes. Really? Did he "ake" her or did he "take" her? lol. As this was a debut novel, I hope the author has had an opportunity to improve but I would be hesitant to read her again. Maybe another 6 months of editing and rewriting and then this could perhaps be called a "masterpiece" but as it stands it is worthy of barely 3 stars. less

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