Imagining Violet by Mary E. Hughes tracks Violet Courtenaye, an aspiring musician in the late 19th century, via a series of correspondents. These letters, natural, use a journal format – one that is notoriously difficult to execute. Sadly, I found that the attempt was out of tune.
The obvious negative to this stylistic choice is its difficulty in creating and holding tension. Everything is most definitely in the past, and one sided. Therefore it takes a deft hand to keep a reader’s attention without succumbing to cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger. Here I think Hughes stumbles, and unlike other formats where dialogue, characterization, setting and theme can pull a muck-up of tone out of the doldrums, the stereotypical journal does not have this luxury. In the end I found it difficult to maintain my attention, and not well-researched enough to switch me over and peak my inner history nerd, instead.
It takes more than good-editing and clean writing to pull most historical novels along – add in this sort of format, and you are in trouble. And while I believe that Imagining Violet will definitely have it’s audience, sadly for me, it did not strike a chord.
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