There Is No Lovely End

by Patty Templeton

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

I picked this novel up at ICON 40. I was intrigued by the story of Sarah Winchester (my Supernatural fan heart beat faster) and I’m always on the lookout for interesting historical fiction. Plus the cover and the art (see those cool icons) caught my attention.

There is No Lovely End fell a bit short for me. There were separate character stories happening which drew to a close towards the end of the novel, but there was no real resolution (fitting for the title, I guess, but even then the end fell flat). At times, I felt overwhelmed by these separate stories.

Hester’s goal to find her son, Nathan, and her quest to get her skills back
Hennett and his quest to find Hester and get rid of his dead brother’s ghost
Nathan and his quest to stay away from his mother
Sarah Winchester and her quest to get rid of her dead daughter’s ghost
Each character had a distinct voice and way of speaking. So as I moved from chapter to chapter and between each character’s journey, I often felt as if I was relearning the story and having to reset my perspective on the story. For me, as a reader, there was too much going on—too many characters, too many storylines and too much language translation.

In the end, I wanted more Sarah as I found her story to be the most tragic and engaging. Hester’s and Nathan’s stories, outside of all the other stories, could have, in my opinion, stood on their own with everyone else fading into the background as secondary or tertiary characters.

With elements of historical fiction laced with paranormal and a splash of fantasy, There is No Lovely End definitely delivers on those points. The world is beautiful painted and realized. I could see and feel the world these characters these world existed in. However, the story needed a bit more thinning out. With so many characters and competing storylines that slam together at the end with an incomplete resolution, I’m not sure I would recommend this novel to the faint of heart.



This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews