Review: Slightly Underwhelmed......
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 7, 2013
It has taken me a while to get my thoughts together enough to write my review about Nocturne. Although I haven't so far read anything else by Andrea Randall, I loved Charles Sheehan-Miles' Thompson Sisters books, so giving a low rating for this book is a bit of a surprise for me, as I never dreamt I would be posting a less than stellar review.As such, I kinda hate myself for only giving it 2.5 stars. I do have reasons though, and valid for my personal reading experience.I really enjoy a good teacher/student love story, and over the last year or so, many of them have been released into the market, some good/some not so good. While the writing in Nocturne is excellent, the characters well developed and the story well thought out I had several issues that just really put me off the story as a whole.It started out really well, I enjoyed the verbal sparring between Gregory and Savannah in the classroom and in general, and while they were actually in the student/teacher domain, their relationship development, their change in feelings towards each other and how they dealt with it really grabbed my attention.Gregory - "Nothing about her mouth was wrong. Nothing about the smell of lilies coming from somewhere between her neck and her hair was immoral. Nothing about my desire for her was deviant."Unfortunately this part of the story only accounts for approximately 1/3 of the book and we are then bought forward 5 years. From here on the story gradually lost its appeal to me.I haven't ever had a problem with adultery in a book before, I get that it is generally integral to the story I am reading and therefore just roll with it. I think the reason it really left me cold this time was the whole way it played out and how the involved parties were ultimately portrayed.Gregory showed promise in at the beginning of the book; he reminded me a lot of Gabriel Emerson (Gabriel's Inferno/Gabriel's Rapture) in a lot of ways. Your typically emotionally repressed, passionate to the point of being obsessed with his craft, difficult to get along with male, as well as being perceived as aloof and churlish by those who don't know him. However as the book progressed I actually found myself disliking him more and more. I understand he was in love with Savannah; however I just struggled to come to terms with a lot of his actions and how he used his love to justify his treatment of others because of it. This became a real issue in the latter stages of the book.Savannah was also a really likeable character initially for me, she was strong, confident and not afraid to stand up for herself if she thought she had a point. Her general positivity and her sly digs to Gregory about his stuffiness made me smile several times. This all disappeared in the second part of the book, she seemed to morph into a completely different woman. There were moments when the strength popped up but they were few and far between, again her justification of being in love to commit adultery continually just didn't work for me in view of her upbringing.This isn't a bad book; it just didn't work for me. That-said it won't stop me from reading more from Mr Sheehan-Miles, or seeking out more by Ms Randall.ARC provided by the authors in exchange for the above honest review.