Overall this novel for me was an innoffensive as a cucumber sandwich, not the most nutritious of meals, but filled a hole better than the empty calories of a chicklit saccharine pulp. The traumas of the characters, poverty stricken and living in an idyllic setting by a lake, fighting to survive let along prosper were evoked reasonably well, and some of the stories did ring of truths well observed, but still somehow, I could not empathise with the numerous characters, too many of them to hold onto, not drawn sparsely enough to be evocative, yet too detailed to keep on top of. A lesson there to keep things simple, focus on a few and pen portrait the rest. Some of the elements seemed superfluous and added on for effect – the poet yearning to escape from her husband to write seemed put in the novel just to give Mattie a convenient way out. The story of the lecherous h0otel guest and his comeuppance from the staff seemed contrived and simplistic. And even the core tale, the supposedly tear-inducing central murder didn’t rent my heart as it should have done, while Matties heroic final stance was also too good to be true. A piece of fluff, but being about authors and writing and a female voice, with an artificial sheen of literature.
