Title: The Girl in a SwingAuthor: Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame)
Genre: Horror? Romance? I dunno.
Synopsis: A man meets a woman while on a business trip and falls head over heels for her. They get married after knowing each other only two weeks and live happily ever after...until strange things begin to happen.
Stars: 3/5
Lauren's Review: I decided to read this book because someone I know listed it among their favorites. I picked up a used copy that had the same cover as above...which is why I need to tell everyone that this book is NOT a "beautiful, haunting, erotic love story and absolutely terrifying ghost story."
First things first, this book IS well written. Wonderful prose, and of course I loved that it was set in the English country side (I'd even been to a few sites mentioned!). That being said...
It is NOT a beautiful love story! It's like Romeo and Juliet (not the ending), these people have known each other TWO WEEKS! I just can't cheer on their decision to be married! And as for erotic...call me pervy, but in this Nora-Roberts-Danielle-Steel age, this book fell far short of erotic.
Which brings me to the most disappointing part...the horror aspect. This book just didn't scare me. Richard Adams is not a ghost story writer. At one point I was telling John what happened and he said "that sounds scary to me!" and I thought "yes, this should be scary...but it's just not."
It's a good book and worth the read, but that quote on the cover just left me expecting so much more than it offered. The irony is that this book is very similar to Rebecca, one of my all time favorite books. Two strangers meet, soon get married, weird stuff happens, scary ending. But with Rebecca I had no expectations so I really enjoyed it. With this book I expected so much, and it just fell flat. I blame the cover.
So...I guess you should never judge a book by it's cover? And don't read this book when you want a horror story.
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