I got a little history I did not know. It covers a few years around 1650 when the English took a deep-dive into slavery and slave trading in the Carribean for the sake of white gold (sugar). It preceded and predestined same in Virginia. I learned about Barbado's brief fight for independence, Cromwell's failed plan to take over the area from the Spanish, Dutch traders, and bucaneer's efforts to confound them all. What a rollicking decade. It was a generally good read, but unfortunately you have to take in a bit of bodice ripping along the way. I would have given it 4 stars but every chapter seems to have a token "bodice-rip" in it (just for fun tried my new Kindle search function which says there were 26 "bodice" and 35 "breast" mentions); just got silly in parts. If you don't mind scanning by a few pages, it was worth the pennies Kindle charged. --From Red Adept Reviews--I downloaded Caribbee, by Thomas Hoover, as a free book from Amazon.com.Overall: 3 3/4 StarsPlot/Storyline: 4 1/2 StarsThe opening scene grabbed my attention; a good pirate raid will do that. But once the main story began, it took awhile for the pace to pick up again. After that point, the rising action was consistent: numerous buildups to intermediate climax points as the overall tension of the book consistently rose to the finale.The plot of this novel weaves several threads together into a rich tapestry: romance and politics, greed and rebellion, civilization and lawlessness, desperation and faith. If I could book passage to the world that Mr. Hoover has described in this book, I would.The Caribbean’s image in Caribbee is portrayed intentionally as a pre-colonial-America, with dedicated—if flawed—people and their desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The message I took away after reading was one of both realism and hope, elements the world can always use more of.Character Development: 4 StarsThe novel portrayed several opposing factions: loyalists, separatists, slaves, owners, traders and pirates. It’s true that some of the characters were reduced in areas to a single driving emotion, but I feel that was a perfectly natural extension of the stress the plot was placing on them.Numerous characters, including the main character Hugh Winston, suffered from a chronic inability to trust, and it wrenched the plot in new, tragic directions with frightfully enjoyable regularity. You know a book is written well when you can identify at least somewhat with every side, and it’s hard to tell who the worst villain is.Everyone received detail and background. Usually it was enough to make them unforgettable; occasionally, it was too much, irrelevant to the plot and distracting. One of the main characters came across as anachronistic, a feminist and civil rights activist three centuries early. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her. She just felt a little out of place: a romance character lost in a political history novel.Writing Style: 3 1/2 StarsMr. Hoover has clearly done his research, and it shines through in his writing style. He takes his time, embroidering each scene, embedding it with careful details. His world took shape around me, and I was immersed in the past. This effect happily extended to dialogue as well. I enjoy reading period speech, and Mr. Hoover did not disappoint. He had a wonderful mix of British, African, Dutch and French speech patterns, and where appropriate he stirred together mixtures of several languages to reflect the melting pot that was the Caribbean at that point in history.The other side of the thoroughness coin, however, revealed the unfortunate habit of including a plethora of details, to the effect of bogging down the story. One detailed explanation was repeated later in the novel. The slower pace sometimes felt like reading a history book, and during action scenes it became consciously frustrating. In another instance, what was supposed to be a big, end-of-book reveal to one of the characters as well as the reader ended up being easily predicted much earlier on, thanks to too many flashbacks, musings and hints.Editing: 2 1/2 StarsI have to include this section, because so much of what little was negative about this book occurs here. The ebook was plagued with errors, most notably a lack of spacing between scenes, making smooth transitions difficult. A find-and-replace error left all instances of “defiance” posted as Winston’s sailing ship “Defiance”, which added unintended hilarity. Typos and other mistakes cropped up often enough to be annoying: I stopped noting them halfway through due to sheer volume. With a simple read-through, this book’s readability could be vastly improved, and a lot of the reader’s confusion and distraction would be avoided.
What do You think about Caribbee (1985)?
Great historical detail, great characters, just some problems with pacing toward the end.
—missanixx
interesting historical fiction about some islands I. the Caribbean
—lilmiceman
This had the feel of a female author. (ugh)
—Megan
