And it's only the end of August! You know, maybe I shouldn't be chortling about this, since I haven't actually done the math -- maybe I'm not actually ahead of where I'm supposed to be and I just feel like I've been reading a lot lately. Whatever.
It's always a sad thing when you notice a favorite author has started to fall off his or her game. Maeve Binchy has never been a "great" novelist but she's one whose books I always look forward to. Unfortunately, the last few haven't been so great -- in fact, I would even describe this one and the one before as not quite up to snuff. One thing that has stood out to me in both is that she insists on writing American characters (she's Irish) but doesn't have an ear for how Americans speak at all. That's fine except I know that her books sell well here, and it seems to me she would want to make sure she had that right. I know that if I was writing British or Irish characters, I would want someone British or Irish to read through my manuscript and help me get the voices of the characters just right. To not do so seems a bit sloppy to me, and I find it disappointing.
I've got so many books on my "to read" shelf right now, and each time I go there to pick one out, I have a hard time choosing because so many of them look good! My next selection is Bee Season, and I'm already engrossed.
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