Jill Marie Landis has been an up-and-down author for me. This is an old one from 1998 – I have a couple of other books by her in my TBR pile so I hope they work better for me.
Glass Beach by Jill Marie Landis
(1998, American Victorian) 6/8/2012
Grade: 2.5
Elizabeth Bennett is thrilled that she is finally free when her abusive husband dies, leaving her free to raise her daughter on their Hawaiian estate. But when the will is read, she receives a shock – although her husband left the estate to their daughter, he named his illegitimate son, Spence Laamea, as the trustee. They must live together on the estate until her daughter comes of age…
This started off very well. I loved the Hawaiian setting and the characters were interesting. I was intrigued by a story about an abused woman learning to find her own strength, and the author at least tried to sidestep the I-hate-you-but-I-lust-for-you setup. But the book started to falter in the second half. There was a secondary romance that took up way too much space in the book, and the heavy dose of dialect in that storyline pulled me out of the book every time it popped up. The setting wasn’t used as well as it could have been. And finally, the hero and heroine seemed to be hitting the same notes over and over again, and I just got bored. I found myself skimming hoping it would get better. A long separation between the hero and heroine in the last quarter of the book was the breaking point for me – I just skimmed to the end to find out what happened. I was surprised that a book that started out so well ended up being so dull.
When I started getting bored with this book, I wondered if I was in the wrong mood and considered setting it aside to try again later. But no!! I’ve got to be more strict about these older books in my TBR – they get one chance to impress me and then off to the donation pile. Putting books back on the shelf is how I ended up with 2000 books at one point!
Karen Wheless
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