Good story, but it didn’t excite me. I needed something more special or different about the characters.Lucie was bland, passive, trusting, naive. Her friend said Lucie had a mind like a lawyer. But lawyers are smarter about analyzing things and people, not trusting as easily as Lucie did. Her lawyer-like-ness was speaking calmly with reason.If you look at an outline of the plot with events, twists, and the roles of characters, it’s very good. But the filling in of words for 300 pages was plodding. I felt like it was assigned reading, instead of wanting to read it. Some parts were repetitive with Lucie pondering and speaking the same things over and over again.Another negative is that it is written in 1st person Lucie. A story has to be super good to overcome that.I liked the idea of the black swan, a person who looks good, or wonderful, but is menacing with hatred underneath.This is more like fiction than romance. There is not much relationship development. There is a happy ending.DATA:Narrative mode: 1st person Lucie. Story length: 338 pages. Swearing language: none. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: one was referred to with one sentence. Setting: around 1890 England and France. Copyright: 1990. Genre: mystery suspense with a romantic element.
