William Corlett (1938–2005)

A decent children's fantasy tale, aimed I would say more at actual children rather than teenagers. The writing and characterisation are decent, and I'm interested in the characters, particularly in Phoebe and her relation to the others. That being said, it's a bit more simplistic than I'd realised and I suspect I may not bother to read the rest of them.

What we have here is essentially the children's introduction to an interesting historical house (presumably the key location for the rest of show more the series), meeting their adult mentor figures for the series, discovery of their role in a magical adventure they don't actually understand yet, and what you might call a test-run adventure that introduces the sorts of things they might be doing. Fairly standard fare, competently done.

I would say that this felt very much like one book in a quartet, rather than one book in a four-part series. While there were some events, it felt mostly like setup for the later books, rather than an arc of its own that was closed. As such, it was a bit unsatisfying to read in isolation. It feels unfair to penalise it for that, so I won't, but it's worth noting that some authors manage to avoid this and make each book a full story. Again, though, it's a children's book and thus both relatively short and relatively simple.

It was decent, I don't regret reading it, I wouldn't refuse to read another one, nor do I plan to look for them, so it gets a 3.

One odd thing: at one point a character says "poop". This really threw me out, because I've never heard a Brit use this word and can only view it as an Americanism, so the sense of Britishness wobbled violently. No idea why it ended up in this story... show less

I did indeed laugh out loud a few times, but I was bored also for part of the time. 390 pages is a lot for such a trifle! There are some amusing bits in "Two Gentlemen Sharing," which indeed builds upon a very long and honorable tradition of English Pastoral Romantic Comedy (for example, see "As You Like It" by Will "the Bard" Shakespeare). Interestingly, although this novel was published in 1997, parts of it already now (in 2016) already seem incredibly dated in terms of the social show more prejudices and attitudes. I do feel that a good editor could have helped Mr. Corlett cut out about 40% of the book, and it would have made the novel tighter, breezier, and a lot more fun. show less

I read all these positive comments about the book, and decided to read it, but every time I read a summary for it, the cynical part of my head (...that might be most of it) kept rewording the summaries: 'This story alternates between viewpoints of Chris NOW, when he is probably a depressing, remote, annoying old man who has wasted his life and is now starting to regret it, and where you get to see how he interacts in probably very true-to-life-but-who-says-that-makes-it-fun-to-watch ways show more with his family, and THEN when he was younger, more naive, and also probably angsty and obsessive and stupid. You will get into it because it is well-done, wishing something good and refreashing will happen to the characters, when really it's just getting more hopeless, and then it will end with good 'closure' and the main character will finally be able to 'move on,' but won't really leave you exactly feeling like it was a good, worthwhile experience for them, either (even if maybe you know it was). It will be a good book/ending because it is well written and realistic, but you will also moan and want to strangle it and wish you could find writing like this in happier (perferably fantasy) stories.'

Avoiding it on my shelf for a while, I eventually glanced through some of the earlier pages, and what do you know if the guy isn't actually kind of snarky and nice and not completely self pitying and angsty! And his mother's an awesome lady, kind of like him! I actually care about how their relationship is going to end up! And the tone is a little more upbeat than you would ever expect! Maybe this will not only be good, but also actually your style!

...And it was!!!! ....For the first chunk. ...And then it turned in to exactly what I thought. ^_^ (though for the record, his mother stayed cool. but the whole subplot just seemed to lose importance after a while) I'm not saying that makes it bad, of course, but... Aah, well... Rated for what it is it would probably get a 9... Rated for my appreciation of it... Oh, hell, I still can't bear to give it less than an 8. And I was VERY sad to find the author died of cancer and I imagine won't exactly have any new books coming out any time soon. T_T show less

A well written novel about an older man looking back on his life, now filled with regret and missed chances. A maudlin story lifted by exceptional writing.