This is not a good sequel. It’s not bad, but it is very, very predictable. If you read the first book, you can call every single plot “twist” in this one. There really isn’t a surprise, and sometimes the characters feel very, very, very modern. Like really modern – even the characters supposedly religious and conservative feel far too modern, like they got in the Tardis or something. There are several scenes where women are either too forgiving. of a transgression or too quickly transgression.
Several of the characters are repeating plot points from the earlier novel. Manon’s fear that she will not make a good wife echoes that of Rose in the first book. Gabrielle’s marriage is another version of what happened to Nicole. Claudine’s story doesn’t work in a couple of ways (when she sins it is not entirely out of character but it could have been led up to in a more detailed way. This would have made the act seem like less out of the blue) and is basically an alternate Elizabeth.
But there also feels like a huge missed opportunity in the plotting of the novel. There is a plot concerning an abusive, and before the woman can kill her abusive husband, she is nicely saved from having to make that choice. Quite frankly, that was disappointing. Runyan could have tied the plot into the historical figure of La Corriveau – a woman who was hung for killing her husband – but the plot in the book fizzes out.
But it was nice reading a book where the woman actually interact.
