A fast paced historical novel with bland characters ~ Behind the Wooden Door by Emily Godwin

12:00:00 AM

Title: Behind the Wooden Door
Author: Emily Godwin
Format acquired: ebook
Source: Free on Kindle
Publication date: June 2, 2014

Summary

When an army of soldiers marches through her castle doors, Princess Lanie is plagued with thoughts of blood, death, and sorrow. War is something she never fathomed happening in her lifetime. Falling in love with the army's commander, Tristan, wasn't part of the plan either. He's smart-mouthed, arrogant, and everything her tyrant father would disapprove of. After all, Tristan's place is on the battlefield, not a throne.

After the kingdom's fortune teller predicts a deadly outcome, Lanie knows her secret romance is an execution waiting to happen. She has to do something - fast - because the war path has redirected toward her.


Review:

First things first, is this supposed to be a standalone or the first book in a series? I did my research and the author didn’t mention any sequel in the works so I will assume that Behind the Wooden Door is a standalone novel. I just have to make that clear to everyone.

Behind the Wooden Door is a historical novel. It’s really short for a historical novel and it’s fast paced. The main characters of this book are Lanie and Tristan. While I have no complaints against these two as a character, I also felt disconnected with them throughout the book. The best word to describe is boring.  Cormac’s more interesting to read. Hell, I even had more fun reading the scenes with Madame Cornelia in it.

Don’t even get me started with the romance in this book. Insta-love. Ugh. It seems that all the books I’ve been reading lately have insta-love in them. Will I ever escape from this insta-love paradise hellhole?! I honestly have no problem if the book I’m reading has insta-love, I even loved some few books that has that in them. But it depends on how the author executed it. In this book, it was just so sudden. It just came out of nowhere. I didn’t even knew that Lanie has any feelings towards Tristan. You would think that with war looming on them, they’d be worried. But no, that’s not what happened. Princess Lanie’s more interested in kissing and sneaking out with Tristan. Wtf.

There’s a lot of loopholes in this book. I think if the author didn’t just focus on the romance part of this book, I’d enjoy it more. This book left me with a lot of questions. Like why did Artair looked at Lanie with pity on his eyes? What’s really the reason the war started? Was it really because Artair wanted Rattonim? What was the meaning of Lanie’s dream about the wooden door? This book really had a lot of potential in it.


If you’re looking for a short and fast paced historical novel then Behind the Wooden Door might be for you.

You Might Also Like

2 comments

  1. I quite like short books - but I want characters with a little more than you've described.

    http://lizziedailyblog.blogspot.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This was really a short read but like I said in my review, the characters were bland.

      Delete