Talland House by Maggie Humm
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and She Writes Press for providing me with an ARC of Talland House in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist
Almost three years ago I took my mother on a holiday to England. We visited St. Ives for a few days and I became enchanted with Cornwall. It was beautiful, magnificent and charming.
I had a wonderful time there. We were very lucky with the weather and ever since then I have used Cornwall as my mental happy place, especially during this terrible pandemic.
So, when I received a copy of Talland House from the publisher I was excited on embarking on a mental holiday to one of my new favourite spots in this world. Throw in some historical fiction and a suspicious death and I’m your gal.
Now I’m sitting on my couch, a Hallmark Christmas movie playing in the background, because it’s October and Halloween does not exist in the Hallmark Universe, and a Scotch neat in easy reach. All to ease the agitation I’m feeling right now.
I’m asking myself “It all sounded so promising. What went wrong?” Isn’t it always the case, though?
The Details
Let me begin with the protagonist. I know, I know. I always start with the protagonist, but it’s a good way to start this hopefully mild rant.
Lilly is entitled, arrogant and cocky. Traits that I personally don’t find too amiable in a main character, but they could nonetheless work, if the story itself is well crafted and executed.
I just find it doesn’t encourage a reader to continue with a story when the protagonist keeps comparing everything that they think is better.
Lilly, from what I gathered, had a great opportunity, hence her move to Cornwall, yet her internal thoughts make it sound like she much rather be back in Paris.
Or is this just a way to establish a very snooty character, whom I don’t really care about? And if so, why would that be the object of this story? It puzzled me, but I was willing to give it a try.
What really irked me to the point of almost tearing my hair out was the writing style. For the love of everything a person may find holy, this could have benefitted with a little more patience during the writing process.
I completely understand the excitement and enthusiasm coursing through a writer’s veins as they have this great story in mind and they want to get it down on paper as quickly as possible, but the jumps in times were seriously driving me insane.
One sentence has Lilly talking with her landlady and the next she is standing inside the painting studio. No Paragraph break and no warning of the abrupt scene change.
It kept pulling me out of the reading flow, so to speak.
In addition to the quick jumps in time, the writing style couldn’t decide if it wanted to be more descriptive and verse-like or quick-acting prose. The constant switches were just as tiring as the jumps in time and space.
It became exhausting to read. And what frustrates me the most is the potential this story had. I could see it shimmering right beneath the surface of whatever the narration tried to do. It was right there, yet so far away.
The Verdict
Overall, I must say I gulped my Scotch too fast in order to numb the sadness in my heart. Talland House could have become one of my favourite reads of 2020, but it just fell a little too short on a lot of aspects.
This just wasn’t for me. And I’m very gloomy about it.
