To See Your Face Again

Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to like this book.
Review: Ms. Price does an excellent job of writing descriptions and presenting historic material in a way that is both interesting and accessible. I was especially impressed by the account of the sinking of the Pulaski. Her real life-based characters are well researched, though the dialogue is so stilted as to give the impression of being translated from Russian by someone whose primary language is Latin. I could get past this except for one thing: Ms. Price has saddled us with Caroline and Natalie Browning. These women have to be the most tedious characters in fiction since Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta and Lucy Farinelli. Caroline is a prig with a bad case of "I'm beautiful and wealthy and don't do a lick of work but my life is so harrrrrrd!" Please. As for Natalie, I grew heartily sick of reading (at least once per page, it seemed) about her "strong will" and "flawless beauty." Apparently all is forgiven--her tantrums, self-absorption and endangerment of others because she's fun to look at and has red hair. Me, I would have pushed her into the drink before the ship cleared the mouth of the Savannah River.

I also believe that Ms. Price did a disservice to the characters of Mary (Merry Willow) and Ben (Bending Willow) McDonald. As she has so often done when she writes about slaves and servants, Ms. Price tries hard to give these characters dignity and to showcase their uncorrupted nature. Alas, the effect is to patronize them and make them appear simple-minded rather than unspoiled. Try as I might, I just never saw what was so bad about Ben and thought that Natalie treated him abominably.

If you can get past the characters and the prissy dialogue, this is a pretty decent book. And if you want the real scoop on the Mackay and Stiles families, I recommend The Light of Other Days by Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell (Robert and Eliza Mackay's great-granddaughter).

Rating:
Summary: I loved all her books. I am sorry to hear that she died.
Review: This book is so wonderful. I have read the entire quartet. Also I have read the st. Simon's group. Do you gave a list of any other books she wrote? If so Email me at [e-mail]. Her books read like personal diaries and you feel they are happening to real people and what the people of that period were really thinking. I was hoping to find out that she had written something else after the quartet and was disappointed to find out on your web site that she had died.

Rating:
Summary: This was a good book
Review: This book was very fun to read. It kept you interested the whole time. I read this huge book in about two weeks because i couldn't stand not to miss a day reading it. It also made you want to read the next in the series which I am trying to figure out what its called. Eugenia Price did a wonderful job.

Rating:
Summary: Good story with cardboard characters.
Review: Very fast and very entertaining, this is a love story that develops very slowly but keeps the reader wanting to turn the page in hopes of things working out. Based on the factual sinking of the ship "Pulaski" which took the lives of some Savannah residents, Price sets Natalie Browning, daughter of "Savannah"'s Mark, on a crash course with destiny and some lessons in survival that are pretty interesting. However, the characters could be more believable. Natalie's flawless, flame-haired beauty is a little too often commented on and a little too hard to really digest, especially with the fact that she is, of course, a spoiled brat, an idea which is hardly new in literature. Her counterpart, Burke Latimer, is this golden Adonis whose dashing good looks are a little wooden as well, and his teasing of the bitchy Natalie smacks too much of something Margaret Mitchell has already done. Aside from that, though, congratulations again to Eugenia Price for creating engaging fiction from factual events.