In Medias Res
by Yolanda Wallace
Pages: 208
Date: March 1 2010
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None
Review
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0
Read: March 9 to 10 2016
My third book that I’ve read by this author.
And I wish to immediately lead off with noting that I might, possibly, have ended up giving this book a higher rating if I had read this first instead of third. This is vaguely unfair to the author, since this book is the first one that got published. Still, after two books I gave 5 stars to, one of which I seriously considered making a six star shelf for, I kind of set myself up for failure. Sure, a counter to that might go, most of these books by this author appear to have relatively low ratings by other readers, – but that includes the two I gave 5 stars to.
Right, so. This is a book that stars Sydney Paulsen Stanton. And by star, I mean that everything and everyone is experienced by the reader through Sydney. Even the person who is . . . um, I guess I’ll go with ‘her other half’ gets short changed. It’s all about Sydney.
The book opens with Sydney running through an airport in Chicago. While running she realizes that she doesn’t know where she is, nor, for that matter, who she might be. Yes, I knew that she would end up having amnesia, I just expected something more than ‘poof – you have amnesia now; bump on the head? Why, no. Illness/disease? *shrugs* doesn’t appear to be the case. Just . . . ‘here, have some amnesia with your tea’.’
She does have, though, a ticket to Key West in her hand. And . . . . she boards the plane. Here’s a woman with the inability to figure out who she might possibly be, and she . . . leaves the city? Maybe everyone on earth who knows who she might be is located in Chicago. Maybe, I don’t know, try to get help in Chicago? Or, you know, ever try to get help? Oops, jumped ahead there. But then, so does the book.
See, we are in ‘present time’ while Sydney’s stumbling around with amnesia. But she does get some flashes of her past while she’s on the plane digging through her own stuff. That’s also how she learns that she happens to have a house in Key West and that happened to be where she had been rushing off to. Course she learned this on the plane. For all she knew she might have found the ticket on the ground and had been rushing after someone to give it to them. Wouldn’t she have been surprised if she found that out once she dug through her bags on the plane – or maybe once she arrived in Key West. She might have ended up in Key West without money, identification, and without that actually being her destination. Lucky then, eh? That she actually was the one that belonged to that ticket.
Even so, this part isn’t the part that felt like a let down from the prior books I’ve read. I actually found the mystery created by the lack of memories to be intriguing. And I liked where the story was going with that woman she bumped into in Key West. Seemed quite interesting. Then, of course, she started to get more memories, her husband turned up and . . . well; I didn’t particularly like how everything turned at that point. My biggest issue, though, was when there’s this massive chunk/scene/section wherein Sydney relives what had caused her to get the amnesia. I just . . . maybe it was the placement in the book? At that exact moment I didn’t want that, I wanted [insert what I can’t say without using spoiler tags]. Instead I got [again with the spoiler tags].
Bah. I’ve used spoiler tags before.
Where was I? Oh, right. So, 70% mark. Syd rushing off to meet the love of her life to try to regain her life. And then . . . a really long flashback. That takes up to something like the 81% mark? Maybe not that long but I’ve a vague recollection that was the case. So, that means they’ll have at least 19% to be together, right? Well . . . not exactly.
Vaguely humorous, on one level, that I read MF paranormal romance book before this book here and got a woman who kept getting aggressively groped/kissed by another woman (and hating it I should add); then read a FF lesbian romance and get . . . MF sex. Well . . . yay?
Ah well. What the book might have been like if Marcy and Syd had been able to spend more time together. ….. (ETA: Marcy's the woman Syd meets in Key West, by the way - I kind of left that hanging there)
I feel like I should say more, write more, but . . . there isn’t really anything else I wish to note
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crap. the last third of my review disappeared. No idea where it went. I just went on to note that the book takes place in Chicago, Key West, and Honduras. And . . . there were a few other things but can't recall what they are now. mmphs.
March 10 2016
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