I purchased The Seakeeper’s Daughters by Lisa Wingate in hopes of maybe reading it attending my local book club.
I had read a book by Wingate before and it was quite good (Before We Were Yours)so I was hopeful going in that this might be the book for me.
It was a dual-timeline, which seem to be popular these days and I was okay with that.
I fact, the book I’m writing is a dual-timeline.
However, the 1930’s portion of the story was totally told in a series of letters from the sister.
The problem with this is you are being told the story, not shown the story.
To be perfectly honest, it just didn’t hold my interest and I ended up skipping it.
Now, I know this is unconventional when it comes to reading a novel. But my short attention span would have nothing to do with it. So I’m sure I missed out on some pretty interesting history.
The modern day story had some really good parts, but I kept feeling the author was working toward a final word count and not a cohesive story.
As far as I was concerned the story was all over the place with too many side stories along the way.
The basic premise was good and perhaps if she could have shared snippets of the letters in the present day and have shown the rest of the story in the alternating chapters it would have kept my interest.
I’m starting to read from a writer’s point of view and I certainly don’t pretend to be a more accomplished writer than Wingate.
I just got the crazy idea to rewrite the story without all the added side plots and to take the letters and write the 1930’s story.
Of course, I’m in the big middle of my own novel so that’s probably not happening, but who knows?
It might be fun.
