Joan Morgan (4)

I bought this book for research for an Executed Today entry I'm writing for Mary Blandy. (It'll come out next spring, on the anniversary of Mary's execution.) If I'd have known beforehand that this was a novel, I wouldn't have bought it. But since I had, and since I was writing the blog article, I felt obliged to read it. And man, was it a slog.

The author, to be fair, obviously did her research regarding the background, crime, trial and death of Mary Blandy. You might even call her book show more "creative nonfiction." But man, was it slow-moving and boring. I mean, I understand that Mary and her boyfriend saw each other for like six years before she poisoned her father, but surely the author could have at least not made it feel like the book took six years to read?

The book wasn't truly terrible or anything -- the style reminds me of Norah Lofts, and I've read several of her books that I like -- but I just found this tedious. And it didn't have to be, because the real-life incident is a very interesting one. show less