Book review: The Paying Guests

Title: The Paying Guests
Author: Sarah Waters
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  After the war, times are tough for Mrs. Gray and her 26-year-old daughter Frances.  They take in boarders, Mr. and Mrs. Barber.  Frances and the Mrs. start up an affair.  The Mr. finds out.  Hilarity does not ensue from there.

Review:  Call me risk-averse, but no good can come from having an affair with your married boarder.   I listened to this book on CD and it was really, really long.  Sometimes when I'm listening to a book I wonder if my opinion of the book would have changed if I'd read it instead. I think I might have liked this one better if I'd read it.

There was some good anticipation around whether or not they were going to get away with killing Mr. Barber.  But then it really started to drag.  The trial could have been shortened. Besides being too long, one other thing that I didn't really like was the ending.  Without specifically giving it away, I just didn't buy it. I would have enjoyed hearing more about what happened to the two of them post-trial.

Time to write: N/A

Book review: A Circle of Wives

Title: A Circle of Wives
Author: Alice LaPlante
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  Dr. John Taylor, a successful plastic surgeon, is discovered dead in a hotel room.  The autopsy reveals his death wasn't accidental.  His funeral brings together his three wives.  Not his two exes and a current wife--his three current wives.  It turns out that he was a bigamist.  Stranger still, his first wife knew about and encouraged the two additional marriages.  Needless to say, several people have motives for why they'd be angry enough to kill Dr. Taylor.

Rating: This book was intended to be sort of a palate cleanser for me.  It seems like my last few reads have been on the intense and/or serious side, and I wanted a break from that.  This was seemingly a good choice for that, but it was like I was expecting a mango sorbet but got lemon sorbet instead.  It's fine, it's just not what I really, really wanted.  There wasn't a lot of depth to the characters.  I had a hard time keeping the wives straight, too.  Also, the detective was the usual cliche--are detectives ever happy people?  I'd like to see a book about a happy go lucky detective with a happy home life.  Is that too much to ask?