In the Past Imperfect / Isabelle Solal

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Literary Fiction/Women’s Fiction

Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“Isabelle, like her main character in Past Imperfect, grew up in one too many countries but feels most at home in Paris... or London... or New York - although currently she's hiding away somewhere in the Swiss Alps, where she practices as a lawyer.”

Isabelle has a blog where she chronicled her first “100 days in Kindle publishing.” Although now beyond the 100 days, she still occasionally posts there.

Description:

“Thirty-something Alina is at the top of her game as an international litigator - until she loses a client, finds herself sobbing in a bathtub, gets sent off to France to stay with her younger sister Margot and comes face to face with the man whose heart she broke seven years ago. In the Past Imperfect, a re-telling of Jane Austen's Persuasion with a twist, is about the choices one woman must make for herself, the people she re-discovers in the process, and why true love isn't as easy as it looks.”

Appraisal:

I’ve come to the conclusion that it is harder to write a positive review than a negative one. Figuring out and articulating what is wrong or what I didn’t like about a book with problems is usually easy. But what if the writing is solid and the story is a good one? How many times can I say I liked the characters I needed to like and not those I shouldn’t? That’s what we expect from a book. Sometimes there will be some specific examples to point to, maybe a line that hits me just right. Something like near the end of In the Past Imperfect, where the protagonist, Alina, is reviewing in her mind all she has experienced in the last six months and thinks, “if this was a novel, it would be a bit much.” That made me laugh, not only for the obvious reason, that it was a novel, but because while I was reading, Alina’s story was true to me, which is the most critical characteristic of all.

FYI:

Uses UK spelling conventions and slang.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four stars