Dreams and Reason

by Juliet Valcourt

[kalventure]

2.5 stars
I had high hopes for this book, envisioning it to be a supernatural-touched Jane Austen tale but it unfortunately fell short and suffers from not having a clear direction. Caroline's stories and her writing to me are to me the most developed part of the book's plot, but isn't really central to the plot (nor the book's description) other than providing Caro with inspiration to draw from in her writing. The characters are a little under-developed, but I did really enjoy the closeness that Caroline and Maryanne have with their siblings. While the book is choppy at times, overall the writing is descriptive and the book is well edited.

The story suffers from the jumping of POV (and introducing new ones mid-book was not the best choice). There are a lot of interesting elements of the book, I just wish that it had been a bit more polished and tied together, as none of them individual elements really coalesced in a meaningful way. There was just simply too much going on: tight family relationships which reminded me of Little Women, historical romance and courtship, a female main character that appears to have desires beyond what society deems appropriate (travel), the supernatural and allusions to Midsummer Night's Dream, witches, female authors of the era (and allusions to Jane Austen) and even men's "sowing of wild oats."

I found myself most engaged with the last 20% of the book. While I still was not fond of the switching POV narrative, the developments in Caroline and Mary's lives were fun to read and I was happy enough with the ending. I was disappointed with the Emily/Gareth sub-plots as they were the most jarringly and out of place, but I was equally disappointed that there was not a resolution to those threads.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher, Riona Press, for the copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.