Review: Revised Edition of Saving Grace
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 24, 2011
This story appeared in two different anthologies, one published a few years after the first. The first edition was a solid 5 stars. It was hilarious. The witty writing style, with its humorous turns of phrase and perfectly descriptive word choice was a joy to read. The various characters were well developed, the romance was sweet, and the story was very entertaining. My husband laughed so hard, he had tears in his eyes when he read it. I started to read a new anthology I purchased a few years later, and realized that the Jill Barnett contribution was recycled from the earlier anthology.  Something seemed off, though, and it wasn't as good as I remembered. I compared the two and discovered differences in a number of places. The story was the same, and overall, it was still good, but someone must have convinced the author to pare it down and dumb it down a bit. Some words were cut, beautifully apropos words or phrases were exchanged for more simple, but pedestrian ones. It was more like a tweaking, rather than a drastic pruning, but to me it destroyed a lot of the charm and character of this novella. Maybe if I hadn't read the first edition, I would have been perfectly happy with the second version, but having read both, I would give the re-edited version a solid 4 star rating, instead of a 5, because it seemed flat in comparison.Added Information:The original story was called "Saving Grace" and it was in a 1993 anthology called "Highland Fling", published by Jove.The revised story was called "Fall From Grace" and it was in a 2000 anthology called "A Season in the Highlands", published by Pocket Books.I assume this is the revised edition because of the title. I do think most people would prefer this edition because Ms. Barnett had more writing experience by the time she revised this novella, and it was a tighter and cleaner work, with more overtly humorous scenes. The original, which we preferred, would probably be considered too wordy, with a more old fashioned writing style.This is a wonderful story in either edition. I definitely recommend it.