Rife with clichés

I really do hate giving a book a bad review... especially when I LOVE other books by the author! But this review to save other Julia Golding fans from serious disappointment and wasting their $. It’s hard to believe this is the Diamond of Drury Lane author, whose mid-grade/YA series has FAR superior writing. The Persephone Code has some of the worst writing I've encountered in years. There is SO much telling and SO many clichés that I was cringeing while reading, and didn't make it past Chapter 4.
EXAMPLES:
1: “She was suddenly very conscious that they were in a bedroom now. This was inappropriate, but she had never been one to set store by propriety. She resolved not to care. “They can’t attack you in front of the local gentry, even if they are there. Please come. It would make me feel much better about my participation.” “But I have nothing to wear!” He raised his eyes to the heavens, not understanding how vital that was for a female.”

2: "Jacob was relieved to see that the women were of a higher quality. The two playing Rosalind and Celia were the stars of the show. It was only a shame that Rosalind had to pretend to be the boy, Ganymede, and then pretend to be a girl for Orlando to woo. Really, Shakespeare? Despite that nonsense, she was witty and warm, with a magnificent head of dark curls and a shaply feminine form very well displayed in her men’s clothes. Her dark eyes were framed by long lashes reminiscent of a doe. But there was nothing shy or meek about her, to continue that comparison. On the contrary, her skin glowed with a summery tan that made Jacob think of meadow romps long ago with a willing lass, and her eyes sparkled with humour. She was more alive than anyone else in the entire theatre. You knew that she would be a handful in all the best ways, and her lucky partner would love every moment of the challenge. Looking around at the appreciation on the faces of the men around him, he could tell he was not the only one to notice, and he feared he would have to beat back the stage door admirers..."

There’s so much in that 2nd example alone that makes me wince: not just over-used metaphors but cliché premises, plot set-ups, inner dialogue… in this book, entire characters seemed to be pulled out of the cliché closet. In the chapters I read, plus some flipping ahead to see if the book gets better, the examples above represent the quality/style of the writing throughout, i.e. NOT just some infrequent glitches. I don’t know why the new wave of Regency-era novels seems to have such a low standard overall, and wonder if this author is purposely ‘writing down’ for that market; but I’m puzzled how an author who can write extremely well - and create fresh, unpredictable characters - even CAN churn out chaff like this.

If you're looking for Regency novels with ORIGINAL characters and plotting, AND superb writing, I recommend the late great Georgette Heyer, whom most current Regency authors (*cough Bridgerton cough*) crib from (yet still get wrong); Friday's Child is a great Heyer novel to start with. I also suggest Ashley Gardner's Captain Lacey series - superbly written and characters SO REAL, you feel sad to 'leave' them at the end of each book - and Karen Charlton's Detective Lavender series (not quite in the same league, but still very good).

So sad to leave a bad review, especially for an author who CAN do so much better! If you don’t mind reading mid-grade/YA, and different eras, the author’s Cat Royal series is tons of fun AND well written!

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