Review: I Never Became Involved
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 1, 2013
Raven's white father had left her Native American mother and never returned like he promised, so Raven didn't want to meet him, even if he was dying, but Steve Maddox could be very persuasive. When she gets to the plantation, her father is nothing like the selfish man she had imagined. She tries to make friends with his two step-children, but they have their own agendas. When her growing attraction to Steve turns to mistrust, things go from bad to worse.The premise of this novel was good, but the execution was lacking. I was never pulled into the novel, so that I cared what happened. I always felt I was on the outside watching the action unfold, but what thoughts were shared lacked depth, so I never became involved. There were some abrupt point of view changes and a few scanning errors. "Scalawag" didn't come into the vocabulary until just after the Civil War. When Steve looped a rope around one of Raven's ankles and his arm, so he would know if she got up at night, what prevented her from untying it, since her hands were free? Since Raven had grown up on an Indian reservation, she would not have likely enjoyed the expensive, multiple layers of clothing and finery as the story indicated. Neither do I think the warriors would have taught her, a girl, how to hunt and fight. The slave in the horse barn was called Joshua most of the time, but he mistakenly became Jasper a few times. The rainbow bridge to heaven and Raven's mother coming to meet her father was too saccharine or melodramatic. The ending problem seems very contrived in several ways. If Selena had been the type of friend to Steve she appeared to be, she'd have never gone along with the stepsister's plan. On top of all this, from about 60% on came descriptive, steamy, premarital sex.The writing wasn't bad, but I found it hard to stick with this book. I had to make myself finish it. I think it has promise, but, as it is, it fell short for me.