Book review

I recently got the first three books from Rebecca Shaw's Turnham Malpas series. I was hoping for another good escape when reality became too stressful, unfortunately these aren't delivering. The first book was quite good over all and I expected each to get better as she developed her writing skills...hmm.

The second book was basically obnoxious when the author took a strong, female character and put her into hysterics over eating a rabbit caught in a snare. Then there was traumatic chest-beating and pulling of hair over her almost feeding rabbit gravy to her babies (who on earth would be feeding infants gravy in the first place??). And why such a furor over the wild animals but not one word about verifying that all the domestic meat they ate was treated humanely? In case you haven't figured it out - I hate when authors use their books to attempt to force-feed their opinions to readers. If the author is against traps and snares, fine; don't buy or eat those animals. But to force others to live by your life choices is absolutely wrong (this is what the character was pushing for and achieved by a contrived plot line).

I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through the third book and I find myself becoming more critical as I go. The line that made me put the book down and write this review was the four-month-old baby's "apologetic wail percolated into the kitchen". Seriously? An infant crying apologetically? And when was the last time a baby's cry percolated (seeped, oozed) into a room?

So, not impressed and I won't be buying any more of her books. In fact, I'm glad these were second hand.