Robin W. (BumbleBob) reviewed Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia on + 10 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Jessica James "Shades of Gray" is a sweet and romantic tale about a young woman, Andrea, who works as a Union spy during the Civil War. The reader sees her start out as a scout dispatching messages across enemy lines and watches as she progresses to more dangerous duties. Andrea meets the handsome Captain Hunter, a Confederate Officer, and saves his life from drowning as she tries to outwit him. The reader watches as her life becomes more and more tangled with this dashing officer's life. Andrea is a bit impetuous and has a temper, too; what ensues is tale that follows Andrea as she gets into scrapes and more serious problems and works her way out of them by sheer willpower.
There are a few problems with this book that make it hard to recommend. No reader picks up a historical romance and expects to find a completely plausible story line; that being said, this plot has some twists that are so forced that it is hard for the reader to get engrossed in the story and it does not seem to jump from the page and draw the reader in. The writing style is on the juvenile side with very little descriptive elements and conversations comprised of one line banter between characters.
The plot moves along quickly at some points and drags at other points as the reader watches Andrea meet a Union officer in one chapter, falls in love with him in the next, and watches him die a few chapters later. Given this quick pace of action, the novel is long at over 500 pages. It is written as if it should be an epic, but falls short of the mark.
While "Shades of Gray" is a pleasant piece with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader interested, its superficial and jumpy plot will cause the reader to forget it existence in a weeks time. Andrea's immature beginning to foreseeable transformation along the length of this work makes her hard to relate to or even care about too much about because we have seen it all before. I don't mean to be too harsh, but my only regret is that I took the time to read all 524 pages of this book when I think a more concise version would have done a better job.
There are a few problems with this book that make it hard to recommend. No reader picks up a historical romance and expects to find a completely plausible story line; that being said, this plot has some twists that are so forced that it is hard for the reader to get engrossed in the story and it does not seem to jump from the page and draw the reader in. The writing style is on the juvenile side with very little descriptive elements and conversations comprised of one line banter between characters.
The plot moves along quickly at some points and drags at other points as the reader watches Andrea meet a Union officer in one chapter, falls in love with him in the next, and watches him die a few chapters later. Given this quick pace of action, the novel is long at over 500 pages. It is written as if it should be an epic, but falls short of the mark.
While "Shades of Gray" is a pleasant piece with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader interested, its superficial and jumpy plot will cause the reader to forget it existence in a weeks time. Andrea's immature beginning to foreseeable transformation along the length of this work makes her hard to relate to or even care about too much about because we have seen it all before. I don't mean to be too harsh, but my only regret is that I took the time to read all 524 pages of this book when I think a more concise version would have done a better job.
