What do You think about Noć Mladog Meseca (2014)?
Linda Lafferty has quite clearly never been taught to show, not tell. The plot of the first three quarters of the book is interesting, but the actual writing is amateur at best and the final quarter of the novel was just all around weak. There was no tension between Ivan and Esma - it just went from him hating her guts one minute to wanting to shag her the next - and I found the whole relationship between them to be forced and unbelievable. Despite the fact that Esma's "confession" was supposed to be about the Christian lovers she takes and then has killed, she never discusses it at all so I finished this novel feeling completely dissatisfied and with a lot of unanswered questions. Was lust the only reason she took them as lovers? Surely there must have been other motives for her to sleep with someone knowing that it would condemn them to a pretty awful death! If not, it makes her a pretty terrible person, yet Lafferty seemed to want the reader to like her. The concept of this book is very interesting, but the execution is awful. The lack of character development especially bothers me - how did the sultan go from being such a sweet child to being an awful, cruel ruler? Why does Ivana simply shrug off her life long fear of men in the end for someone she doesn't even know? Why does Lafferty keep telling us that the sultan and his sister are so close when their relationship is strained and resentful throughout the entire book? I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
—Trent
This book was very much a mixed bag. At its best, it was very, very good, drawing you into the stories of the two main characters and giving you a good understanding of time and place. At its worst, it lost it's way and either felt forced (really hammering home Esma's views on women's rights in ways that didn't flow naturally) or rushed (the battle between the janissaries and the sultan had a lot of build-up, but the actual coverage was extremely short). Overall the good outweighed the bad making this a worthwhile read for historical fiction fans.
—brandicakes1
Trite, boring, bloody.
—Amy
