Thursday, 10 December 2009

Review - The Splendour Falls / Rosemary Clement-Moore

Summary - Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship.

Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, seems to be perfect in every way. But Rhys—a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin’s—has a hold on her that she doesn’t quite understand.

Then she starts seeing things. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well?

Review - The Splendour Falls is another title that has dipped me into the murky and magical world of the South. Secrets, spells and family legacies are aspects that immediately capture my attention and this book was no different. However, at 512 pages, much of this intrigued was diluted and negatively impacted the pacing of the book. At times I was wondering how much more I could read about a dog barking or performing weird antics.

The strength of this novel is the mystery that swirls around Sylvie's family and how it plays into the current marina being proposed in the town. There's plenty to keep you interested between Sylvie's personal growth, the well being of her family's property to her interactions with two handsome guys. Characterisation is relatively strong though I do wish that the guys that are battling over her had been fleshed out more.

Rosemary Clement-Moore was an author who's work I was unfamiliar with prior to this book and I would definitely read more of her titles.

Published: September 8, 2009
Format: ARC, 518 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Source of Review Copy: publisher
Origin: USA

3 comments:

Diana Dang said...

Great review! :)

Unknown said...

I really want to read this one but like you I don't like to be bogged down by irrelevant details. Sometimes less is more.

Thao said...

Nice. I'm not sure about this book but after reading your review I kind of want to read it.