![]() ![]() ![]() Anne-Marie and Penny run the bed and breakfast and, unfortunately, the novel chooses to focus on their problematic relationship as a result of Penny's coming of age. Instead of focusing on the heroines (who are little more than footnotes), the novel focuses on Anne-Marie Entwhistle and her daughter, Penny. ![]() ![]() What I got was dark, disjointed, and ordinary. This is what I wanted to read about-how the heroines come to be at the bed and breakfast and how they interact with a modern world. Deirdre of the Sorrows, Franny Glass, Daisy Buchanan, Anna Karenina, Hester Prynne, Catherine Earnshaw have all signed the guest book and checked in for a few days of freedom from the misery of their lives. The novel purports to be about a bed and breakfast that attracts the heroines of famous novels. Basically, I feel as though I was sold a false bill of goods. And so we have The Heroines, a novel built around one of the most wonderful ideas I've ever encountered-what if the heroines from famous novels needed a respite from the tragedies of their own storylines-and promptly clustermugs the whole thing up. Trying to build upon it and give it complexity strips it of its fanciful "What if?" brilliance and plummets it back to earth. Because no matter how you try to develop it, it will never be as as wonderful as the idea itself. Sometimes a clever conceit should remain just that-a conceit. ![]()
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