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4.5
DIVINE TOYS: Book One This is an entirely different read than Thistle Brown’s first novel, and told in third-person, which I find more comfortable than first-person. Watching Harriet Clark from the age of four-and-a-half to maturity had me cheering her on and hoping that, at last, she would find real happiness. The author slammed me in the first chapter by telling about this child who would suffer beatings from her brute of a father if only she could have piano lessons. Now, there’s a musician in the making. If this sounds very odd, you’ll have to read at least the first chapter to have it make any sense. This is now a more mature novel by this writer, but a story about different people and told very well. I don’t know if the writing is even better than Brown’s first book, or if she has created more palatable characters – some of them, anyway. When I noted “Book One,” I shouldn’t have been surprised when it ended with matters far from resolved. I got in touch with Amazon.com to ask when the second volume will be available and found that I don’t have too long to wait.- David Wagner