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| Book Cover via Amazon.com |
Opinion
Anne Hawley sent me her beautiful book “Restraint” to my home and asked me for an honest review, and I am so happy to do so. Like all books I review, I also picked up the Kindle copy of this to read as well with the physical copy so that I could give you all my take on both copies. The good news is you can pick this up on Kindle. According to Amazon as of writing this review, it’s on sale, so get a copy if you are interested.
Let me begin this review with my first impressions. “Restraint” is a Historical Romance Fiction, it’s also delightfully LGBTQ and this is the passionate adventure of a painter. It is beautiful and touching to start with, and like any good painting, it’s set up as if it starts with an open canvas for which to paint upon. I do want to let you all know one thing though, and that is, I wasn’t expecting something that was written in the same style as you’d find “Great Expectations” or “Jane Austin” because basically, that’s how this reads. In comparison with classic fictions versus historical fiction, I find this an interesting situation. In my experience with reading historical fiction, it’s written to the writer’s voice and reads like someone is looking into the past. Instead, this is a book which reads as though It were written in the past and updated for the modern with some flourishes.
Let’s go into the critiques portion of my reviews. Let me go into “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” portion of my scoring. There are no paragraph spacing in either the e-copy or the written copy. In a book like this which is this long, that can lead to problems with unbroken walls of text and it can hurt the eyes.
In the same category, let’s talk about the em-dash. “Restraint” used a great deal of the em-dash and I assure you after checking up on it, it is used 100% correctly. “So why bring it up Mrs. Y?” you may be asking. I found the frequency of use just distracting enough that it took me out of the story immersion.
“What?” you may be asking yourself. Yep, you got it, my friends, Mrs. Y is very odd, and sometimes when I see certain punctuation choices I ask why it was used, especially if it’s uncommon to novels or stories of the time of publication. I had to think about the choice of the use of the em-dash and realized this had to be a stylistic choice. For those of you who do not sit in the world of classic novels and literature, you may not realize that the em-dash was very popular as punctuation. In fact, I know I saw it frequently in the classics I reviewed during #StayClassyFeb Classical Fiction reviews during February. Thus, if you are sensitive to punctuation choices, and you are at all like me about it, just know that I noticed it and that this is an artistic choice of punctuation.
My next bit of scoring is from the “Lost in Translation” column of my scoring, and this part is my personal feeling on it. I had to start and re-read the beginning about five times before it finally connected. The reason for that was I wasn’t expecting this kind of book, I was expecting a modern take on history like most historical fictions. So know what you are getting into when you pick this up, that’s my warning. If you are like I am and you read book to book, without really ever coming up for air, I highly encourage you to not read this one between sci-fi or horror. “Restraint” should be read between your “Jane Austin Revival” and your romance novel binges. That is where the impact will be felt the best. I do not want anyone to think I didn’t like the beginning, only that I wasn’t expecting it and thus I became lost.
Okay so now with that done let’s go into what I truly enjoyed about “Restraint”. To start with, the character descriptions are lovely, and again this reads so very much like the older books it’s modeled after. I truly felt the rich drama that unfolded for this wonderful painter and how he felt about love and the world he was in.
For this part, let me give high praise to whoever edited and polished this book. Not only did it get a beautiful spot check that was done with expert precession like a surgeon, but it was also given such love and care from the book cover to the pages. The physical copy of this book is a treasure to any book collection. It’s utterly gorgeous, the pages are well set, they have good texture and flip well. Additionally, there is a lot of work put into the e-copy when it comes to the margins and the settings. The fonts do change well, and I enjoyed that it had a decent setting on the Kindle for the reading speed and was able to keep up with my reading. I think that the editors, e-copy converter, bookbinders, the person who painted the book cover (because this has to be a painting), the copywriters and everyone involved with the process of making “Restraint” did an exceptional job. I think the love that was poured into this novel should be commended. Mostly, Anne deserves a lot of applause here. It’s really difficult to write a book like this with such love.
Next, the world building was done well, I liked how it was very realistic. Everything read to me that it was historically accurate but I am not a history major so you may have to look some things up. I assure you though, this had all the charms that could be wanted. I could feel and see in my mind all of the scenery. The painting portions were lovely. I really enjoyed how our handsome main character was presented in this world. I loved how the interactions with the environment were realistic and expertly detailed.
I want to give an opinion here and hopefully, you can all understand where I am coming from with it. Have you ever been near a car enthusiast who rebuilds old cars using “Stock” parts, but also puts things in like car stereos or car paint colors that didn’t exist when the car first was released? Well, that’s what “Restraint” is in my opinion, the beautifully restored form of the art of literature that disappeared when the industrial revolution had taken over, and we no longer have quaint estates and dramas of the class system. I love this about the book, I love that I noticed it and that we have life breathed anew into something that deserved it. There are modern ideas in the novel, but it basically is a rebuilt form of an old style that deserved the revitalization.
Lastly, because again, this is romance, there are some spicy bits here. The erotic portions were good. I’m happy to inform all of you who care about gravity that all of Newton’s 3 major laws of gravity seem well represented in any of the physical actions. If you are however asking “Mrs. Y, was it steamy?” I can’t really answer that. I found it romantic, I found it appropriate for the setting that it was presented in, I found the actions to be centered in the laws of physics and gravity, and that’s about all I can give you in order to keep this review appropriate.
Score
What do I give this charming romance that is written as it was in days long past? Well, “Restraint” has earned a lovely 82/100 which is a 4-Star review on Amazon and Goodreads. I want to thank Anne again for the kindness of this book and the warmth it brought me to read it.
See you all next week, have a lovely day.
