What Could Have Been

An entire series was planned for the St. Ives family, but Barbara Samuel only wrote two of them before switching to women's fiction. Too bad!

The Black Angel by Barbara Samuel
(1999, Georgian) 8/28/06
Grade: 4

Five years after an affair that devastated her family, Adriana marries Tynan Spenser, “The Black Angel”. It’s a marriage of convenience, and most of all, Adriana doesn’t want to risk falling in love - or lust - again. But Tynan isn’t what she expected, and his kindness and sensuality tempt her to let down her guard. But can she accept the secrets he’s hiding as well?

An interesting story that gets better in the second half. The plotline was interesting from the first - drawing in hypocrisy about women’s roles, racism, Catholicism, and unique secondary characters. I especially liked the way she made the family members part of the story, without making them obvious sequel fodder. But in the first half, I felt distanced - the writing seemed to keep me at arm’s length from the characters and their emotions. But this went away in the second half - either I got used to it or the author became more intimate. The book wrapped up a little too quickly, but it was a compelling read.

I can't blame an author for following her muse, but it's frustrating as a reader, when you can see where an author is going, and then she decides not to go there. So many good authors, going in directions that just don't particularly interest me.