Two Books

This book has potential, and its success as a first effort is not surprising. Overall, though the writing was readable and had some nice touches, I was not satisfied. The final conflict was annoying.  

There is a lot of interlocking stuff here. The author "writes what she knows" because she is a Peruvian-American who moved from the South to New York City. And, that is what her main character does. 

The two love interests also write a book together, which is clearly a sort of roman-a-clef of their relationship. In fact, it is darn obvious, and you would think the other characters would say more about that. She's a doe-eyed romantic while he doesn't like romance and favors darker literary fiction.  

They fall in love.  

Katie Holt nicely includes bits and pieces of their work in progress, which helpfully provides insights into what the male side of the love match is thinking. The excerpts are well done and make you want to read the book being written.  

The book is fully otherwise from the woman's point of view, someone who relies too much on true-life romance to succeed in writing. The sex scenes are a bit much at times but expertly done. The romance overall was not satisfying and well-rounded though perhaps some will like it as a fantasy. 

Ultimately, a major problem is that the main character seems immature, and the male character is more fantasy than a complete well-rounded character. The writing of the book sputters (she just stops working with him, not even reading the finale before they submit it) after a stupid complication arises that makes her love interest and advisor/mentor both look bad.

I read the whole thing and it kept my interest. Nonetheless, the main characters eventually got to be somewhat annoying, and the ending complication annoyed me. And, the idea was that they would not just write a "happily ever after," and it sounds like they did. A cheat! 

Why didn't the instructor, who set the guidelines, find this a problem? The whole thing comes off somewhat incomplete. Again, an imperfect first effort.  

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was a book, film, and television series. Each version was somewhat different from the last one taking place in America in the modern day and tossed in an "&." It is a sitcom.

Josephine Leslie wrote the book in her forties and it appears to be her first. The Wikipedia entry on her is a short "stub" though online you can find a picture. An essay on the different houses used provides a bit more information. "R.A. Dick" is a pseudonym. 

The book edition I have is a special version connected to the film with a short introduction largely focused on the movie version. The book title pages references three other books by "R.A. Dick," including one that Amazon tells me is about the devil.

I read the book before and saw the film and television series (a bit silly). The book and the film are alike in various ways though the ending changes as I recall (I won't confirm -- I plan to watch the film again) and the annoying son is dropped out. Various other bits are changed. Overall, the film works quite well. 

The book is pretty good too. It has some interesting ideas of the afterlife and the captain also has some interesting things to say. Mrs. Muir is a bit too weak-willed at times, with the captain firmly in control (he is older and dead, which provides him the ability to know things she cannot). Still, she comes off as a pleasant character with independent views.

The setting of the book (written in the 1940s) is a bit vague though there are references to trains, phones, and radio (suggested perhaps not present early on). It can be many times in the past, Lucy Muir (a word meaning "sea") finding happiness in an isolated home near the sea. The taste of the modern era is there.  

There should be at least one world war mixed in there, which the captain at least would seem to find notable. None is referenced though perhaps it's possible to fit the main portion of the book before WWI.  A war would challenge the book's mood. 

The book has a somewhat old-fashioned feel with a pleasant overall pace from when she is first a widow and before you know it her children are adults, and then she is an old lady. All in less than two hundred pages. Those who like the film should enjoy it.

The passing of time is a suitable theme as we finish another year. I personally did not find this year too pleasing, symbolized by my sleeping through its beginning. We shall see how 2025 goes. The year does have a mathematical simplicity to it.