Serious Contemporary

The serious, non-suspense romantic contemporary: such a rare bird these days! I almost hesitate to criticize one, in case they disappear altogether. (Not to mention, one of the last books by Ruth Wind before she went over completely to "women's fiction", which I find much less satisfying...)

In The Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind
(2000, Contemporary) 9/3/06
Grade: 4

Ellie comes to Pine Bend to research a biography on the mysterious blues singer Mabel Beauvais - and hoping to find her unknown father. She’s offered a place to stay by Dr. Reynard, or Blue, who she met online and who also loves the blues. Blue is certainly charming, with a troubled past of his own, but can he get past his own grief, to reach out to her with love?

This book took a long time to get going. I’ve never had a lot of patience with laid back Southern heroes who are irresistible to women, and the author spends a lot of pages telling the reader how charming he is. And introducing dozens of secondary characters, and meandering along without much purpose. The book perks up in the second half, though, and starts getting interesting when Blue finally becomes a real person instead of just a cliche. The book deals with some interesting issues - Vietnam, and race, and history - but it seemed like the first half was too slow, and the second half was too rushed. Still, in the end it was a good read.

Maybe I just had to get into the rhythm of this book - in the first half, I kept putting it down and finding other things to do, but by the time I got into the second half, I couldn't stop reading.

I meant to add in my review - I really loved the way Wind incorporated internet newsgroups. I used to be a newsgroup junkie, and it rang true. Nice to see the internet incorporated into a book in a positive way.